When a Small Freighter Is the Right Aircraft
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The load is a few tonnes, not tens of tonnes. There is no point paying to position a 737 for three tonnes of cargo.
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The runway is short, rough or remote. Turboprop freighters reach mining sites, island strips and regional airports that jets cannot use.
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Speed matters more than scale. AOG spares, medical supplies, documents and urgent production parts, flown point to point.
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The route is regional. Most small freighters are at their best on sectors of a few hours, often with multiple stops across a region.
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You need regular regional capacity. Small freighters are often placed on ACMI for weeks or months to run a daily or weekly regional network.
Small Freighter Types We Charter
Aircraft | Approx. max payload | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
Cessna 208 Caravan cargo | around 1.4 tonnes | Remote strips, courier and feeder routes |
Beechcraft 1900 cargo | around 2 tonnes | Regional express freight |
Saab 340 freighter | around 3.5 tonnes | Regional networks, mail and parcels |
Dash 8 freighter | around 4 to 5 tonnes | Short and unpaved runways, Africa and remote regions |
ATR 42 freighter | around 5 tonnes | Regional freight and humanitarian work |
CRJ200 freighter | around 6.5 tonnes | Faster regional jet freight on longer sectors |
ATR 72 freighter | around 7.5 to 9 tonnes | The largest turboprop freighter, regional networks |
These are the upper limits. Payload drops with distance, runway length, temperature and altitude, and bulky cargo usually fills the cabin before it reaches the weight limit. A small freighter that looks right on paper may carry much less on a long, hot sector. Send us the route and the load and we will tell you what the aircraft can actually lift.
Load heavier than 9 tonnes? See our narrowbody freighters.
What We Need for a Quote
Weight, number of pieces, dimensions of the largest piece, origin and destination airports, the date, and any dangerous goods. On small aircraft the door size matters as much as the weight, so piece dimensions come first.
Example Palletised freight from the UAE to Djibouti.
Around 3.5 tonnes on ten pallets from Sharjah and Dubai. The regional jet freighter first proposed could not carry the payload on that sector, so the aircraft choice was reworked around the real performance figures. That is the check we do on every small freighter quote.
