Mail carriage on pax acft

[Marlboro_2002]

Hi,

I had just arrived at the ramp and noticed the loading of what seemed as mail in the pax compartment of an all pax 737. I am not talking of a bag or 2, but several, (more than 20).

I was so curious that I went there during the walkaround to ask what were they about to do.
Simple answer: loading the acft!

From what I got futher from the conversation, this is a regular mail flight for that company (german) and is performed every day, using any of its pax aircraft.

Is this legal? Do you know of any other companies that perform it?


Regards,

[CargoMatatu]

All perfectly legal, as long as it is properly secured in the compartment.

This has been performed by many airlines over the years. Some even have specially designed, seat-shaped bags which can be secured by the seatbelt (weight permitting). Other will fold the seats down flat and secure with nets/straps.

[FougaMagister]

That aircraft may be a "Quick-Change" version, where the seats are mounted on pallets and removed after a passenger service. The aircraft is then free to carry mail/parcels both in the cargo hold and in the PAX cabin. A profitable line of work for the airline, allowing maximum daily use of the aircraft.

Photos: Boeing 737-3B3(QC) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Europe-Airpost/Boeing-737-3B3(QC)/1096377/L/&sid=8fc8b332d53ab3247a5f8f28430fd2ec)
Photos: Boeing 737-377(QC) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Jet2-(Channel-Express)/Boeing-737-377(QC)/0957784/L/&sid=94ed072236a8d35d10f36c63e69292c6)
Photos: Boeing 737-3L9(QC) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-(Titan-Airways)/Boeing-737-3L9(QC)/1341123/L/&sid=3c095f1ece4f0d8ece417210a362c64a)
Photos: Boeing 737-3M8(QC) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Mistral-Air/Boeing-737-3M8(QC)/1252654/L/&sid=fd24372e5686170ef64cfe612a24df7a)

And although it might look like a PAX aircraft, it might actually be a freighter:
Photos: ATR ATR-72-201 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Contractors/ATR-ATR-72-201/0697783/L/&sid=b25aafa0bb8a47b99290e0d2512469d7)

Cheers :cool:

[mmeteesside]

Mistral Air do this in Italy with MD82's as far as I can work out.

[FougaMagister]

I guess you mean Meridiana. Mistral Air use 737-300QCs, BAe 146-200QTs and a dry-leased ATR42. index (http://www.mistralair.it/)

Cheers :cool:

[SMT Member]

Quite common procedure, but obviously not while carrying pax at the same time. Just lob the mailbags over the seats and Bob's your uncle. Keeps aircraft busy at quite night periods, everyone's a winner.

[finncapt]

This was a common procedure on the 748 in Scotland, with BA, when I was there.

We would load, maybe the front 4 rows or so, with mail and/or newspapers and the pax would sit in the rest of the cabin.

We had special seat covers to prevent dirtying the seats, there were various rules to obey and instructions about how to do it.

We, the pilots, had to load and unload the freight ourselves in the islands.

Sometimes we had boxes of lobsters, loaded thus, from Kirkwall to Inverness and sacks of malt for the Highland Park Distillery from Aberdeen to Kirkwall..

Great days in the early 80's!!

[Marlboro_2002]

Thank you for the replies.

I had no idea that this could legally performed.

Brilliant.

AS time goes by, I am on the impression that I getting to know less and less about this business.

What airlines do normally operate with this kind of carriage regularly?

The one I saw Air Berlin. I was amazed.

In fact from what I was told, they just had the belts around each bag in order to secure them. I saw one noted with a 25 Kg max sticker.


However, it must be very well payed cargo in order to cover the costs.


Regards,

[411A]

Many times these mail contracts are contracted so that the carrier gets paid, whether the mail volume is large or small...can be big bucks for the bottom line.

[FougaMagister]

Airmail travels in a number of different ways:

- in a full freighter aircraft (either in "bins" or bulk loaded)
- as hold freight on a standard PAX service (see the Royal Mail stickers on the rear of British Airways' A319/320s for instance)
- in a "combi" aircraft, as mentioned by finncapt (not too common these days, although some larger aircraft have combi versions - Tu-204, B747, ...)
- in a "Quick Change" aircraft (737-300QC, BAe 146-200QC, ...) as done by EAP, Mistral Air, Titan Airways, Jet2, etc. - again either bin or bulk loaded
- in the cabin of a PAX-configured aircraft (bulk loaded); as mentioned, the weight limit is lower, with each mailbag restrained only by the regular passenger seatbelt.

There may be only a few mailbags for a particular destination every day, so a separate mail/freight flight might not be profitable. Unlike express freight, airmail does not usually bring a great deal of revenue, but bear in mind that for the airline, an empty volume on a return service is potentially lost revenue... As to why Air Berlin load mailbags in the cabin rather than the hold, your guess is as good as mine! (Unless of course it was a Dash 8)

Cheers :cool:

[G&T ice n slice]

Very ancient history... but

In the late 60s & early 70s for the November/December surge BA used to charter in cargo capacity for the LHR-HKG-LHR route, which was strict cabotage in those days meant that was almost impossible to get anyone other than a British airline to perform the charter.

This meant quite frequently would be a British Midland B707 ... in full pax version, with the cargo loose-loaded over the seats.

Used to take 24-48 hours to load & 24-48 hours to unload....

'twere a right pig - usually customs had cleared & released the cargo before we'd even got it off the ac.... cue lots of very upset truckies spending hours & hours & hours sitting in the truck park ....

(They weren't getting "OT")

[CargoOne]

We used to to carry military personnel with their bags in this way. 40-70 kgs bags restrained by seatbelts, when bellyhold was full of hard boxes :}
Perfectly legal and approved.

[Denti]

As one of the companies bought out by AB we used to do domestic german mail flights every night on our 733s, however the majority of the night air mail system was flown by lufthansa. Nowadays all domestic mail flights in germany have been discontinued and its all done on the ground (trucks, railway-freight). However international mail is still flown apparently, although i thought the DHL fleet (and its subcontractors) do most of it.

We had special seat containers to load the mail into (basicly canvas covers for the pax seats) additionaly the mail could be loaded into the overhead bins and of course they filled up first all the cargo holds. In a 733 we could transport somewhere between 12 and 15 tons of mail depending on how well those mail boxes were filled. However we did not do mixed pax/mail flights, only pax we did transport was crews on a deadhead leg as the first row was empty and available to them.

I have to say i kinda miss flying mail, quite different on the cabin side than passengers and pretty relaxing compared to them.

[42psi]

Air UK used to do the same out of LHR to GCI.

First on Heralds and later F27.

Front two rows of seats blocked off and mail loaded with nets over the mail.

Row 3 was only used for pax as a last resort as the nets prevented the seat back tables being used.

Worked really well on the Heralds as with row 1 facing aft and having the table between rows 1 & 2 left plenty of space to cram mail bags in :eek: