The geography of freighter aircraft operations in the Pacific Basin

Abstract

The expansion of scheduled freighter aircraft operations is a prominent feature of the contemporary international airline industry. By 2000, more than 1600 freighter aircraft were in use worldwide, with much of that capacity deployed on routes in the Pacific Basin. This paper evaluates the factors that shape the geography of scheduled freighter aircraft operations with particular attention given to the place of individual Asian cities within that geography. The paper also examines the separate spatial strategies exhibited by the scheduled freighter operations of two important categories of cargo airlines: the express carriers like FedEx and the combination carriers like Lufthansa.