Shipping cargo by plane can be an efficient, safe, and quick way to move goods but there are some risks to be aware of, including human error, extreme weather, turbulence, cargo fires, and shipping hazardous materials.
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That being said, most flight crew will have considerably higher tolerance for turbulence than most passengers, and crews flying freighters are considerably more likely to just ignore some light turbulence than crews flying passengers (the boxes* neither shriek, nor write nasty letters to the airline).
Some operators fly “on demand cargo flights”, where aircraft will wait for new cargo at the airport were it had landed with the previous load. They may make “repositioning flights” (that are empty), but they do not “return.
Cargo operators use passenger airports as well. Night flights for passengers aren't popular for a variety of reasons. Which means there are less flights for passengers landing and taking off during the night hours freeing up slots for cargo.
Airplanes are built very sturdily. In fact, there's a lot of countermeasures built into the engineering of an airplane much like a car has different things to make a smooth ride on a bumpy road, airplanes have so many parts to it that's built into the aircraft to be able to deal with and safely handle the turbulence.
While turbulence can feel scary, airplanes are designed to withstand massive amounts of it. A plane cannot be flipped upside-down, thrown into a tailspin, or otherwise flung from the sky by even the mightiest gust or air pocket, wrote pilot Patrick Smith on his site, AskThePilot.com.
When an aircraft experiences turbulence, the plane can drop or change altitude suddenly. This is why pilots always caution passengers to buckle up and stay seated when they are experiencing flight turbulence. The sudden movements put passengers at risk.
The hold is pressurized. There is plenty of oxygen, but some airline cargo holds are not climate-controlled, Thompson said. During Sunday's flight from Charlotte to Washington, the Embraer E170 reached an altitude of 27,000 feet, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking website.
The Boeing 747-400F freighter is the all-cargo transport variant of the Boeing 747-400 family of aircraft. With the ability to take payloads exceeding 100 tonnes and a flight range of around 13hours, the B747-400 is ideal for the long-haul transport of large amounts of cargo with variants.