Achieving Sky-High Success

American Airlines Cargo, a division of American Airlines, manages more than 36 million ton miles of freight and mail weekly on approximately 180 wide-body and more than 3,200 narrow-body flights each day. The company provides cargo lift capacity to more than 240 cities in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. However, calculating available cargo capacity on a passenger flight is not as straightforward as it may seem. Not only are there obvious factors such as passenger and baggage forecasts, the amount of fuel on board and equipment weight to consider, but there are also external factors such as airport limits on takeoff and/or landing weights or ground-handling capabilities for tight airport connections that have to be taken into account. The most important factor that affects capacity forecasting accuracy is customer behavior. Bookings on passenger flights are often cancelled, amended or under/over tendered at the last minute. Therefore, forecasting customer tendering behavior is a critical factor that needs to be modeled, using overbooking algorithms to predict the optimal adjustments to capacity in order to minimize spoilage or offloads.

American Airlines Cargo is a division of American Airlines that manages more than 36 million ton miles of freight and mail weekly on approximately 180 wide-body and more than 3,200 narrow-body flights each day. The company provides cargo lift capacity to more than 240 cities in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. It utilizes the cargo capacity of American Airlines’ passenger fleet to facilitate the shipping of many product types, including fresh flowers, fruit, vegetables, seafood and life-saving pharmaceuticals. Its freight customers include some of the largest shippers in the world.