Nordic - sorry, missed the bit about standard loadings. THERE IS NO SUCH THING! In theory anyway, practice there is as it makes life easy.
However, as Chairman Mao once said - People should raise their level of practice to that of the theory, not lower the theory to the level of practice!.
A company may issue standard loadings but htese really date back to the older days when we didnt have such accurate EDP systems which will trim passengers by each seat row rather than by an individual cabin area, allowing for the load controller to utilise his brain and load the deadload to give better trim (which is aft biased for fuel economy rather than foward biased for stability). On a full load yes/maybe a standard loading may apply, but come down from that and they do not! Even if you have even passenger distribution upstairs at whatever pax count you have does not mean baggage is stilled stowed as per the standard. I had this once (long time ago with an Orion B733 Capt.): It wasnt a full load nor were passengers distributed evenly (still smoking seats then etc.) so I had to load bagage non standard to trim the aircraft. On the ramp he saw this and changed the loading to standard and distributed the pax on board evenly. He didnt tell anyone. Anyway I found out after he was airborne and did the recalculations, regardless to say - he was out of trim at ZFW. OK at TOW/LAW. Who cares - well the aircraft hull does of course as it is now under stresses it wasnt designed for!
Once a loadcontroller/despatcher and load control instuctor, I am now responsible for Load Control policy and airport systems for a flag carrier in a region that employs the cheapest labour possible for this type of work; like I said before, you just need confidence in the guy/girl giving you the loadsheet to have ensured it reflects your actual loading, just as much as the figures on it (which are OK as I explained above) - unless its a manual loadsheet; then I would look pretty damn close if I were you!!
As for pcs/wt carriers giving you a better trim - not quite true! They only weighed the baggage at check-in not on the belt going up to the hold; they then calculated an average bag wt at the aircraft side and that average bag wt was used to determine your hold load! And beleive me, that figure will not be as accurate as using a correctly determined standard weight!!
[This message has been edited by Icarus (edited 11 January 2001).]