How to Calculate Chargeable Weight in Air Transportation

Have you ever heard of volumetric weight? In air transportation, we need to know what actual weight, volumetric weight and chargeable weight are.

  • Actual weight

The actual weight of a object is weighed by the scale. It can be divided into gross weight and net weight. Gross weight is commonly used in air transportation.

The actual gross weight is often compared with the volumetric weight, and the larger one will be used as chargeable weight.

cargo aircraft
  • Volumetric weight

Volumetric weight is the weight calculated by the volume of the cargo. It can be calculated by the following formulas.

Regular items:

Length (cm) × width (cm) × height (cm) ÷ 6000 = volumetric weight (KG).

Irregular items:

The longest (cm) × the widest (cm) × the highest (cm) ÷ 6000 = volumetric weight (KG).

In air transportation, the conversion factor for calculating volumetric weight is generally 1:167. That is, one cubic meter is approximately equal to about 166.67 kilograms.

In short, the weight of one cubic meter which is more than 166.67 kilograms is called heavy cargo, and the weight of one cubic meter which is less than 166.67 kilograms is called light cargo.

For heavy cargo, the actual gross weight is chargeable weight, while for light cago, volumetric weight is chargeable weight.

  • Chargeable weight

Chargeable weight is the weight used to calculate the shipping fee. It is often the larger one between actual weight and volumetric weight.

In order to make full use of the space and load capacity of the aircraft, in general, heavy cargo and light cargo are matched reasonably. Too much heavy cargo will make the aircraft overweight with some space left, and too much light cargo will make the aircraft full without reaching the maximum load of weight. So it is better to match heavy cargo and light cargo in the most effective way.

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