Q2 Z2,(Q2) Z2(Q2) - Institute for Water Resources - U.S. Army

CHAPTER I
HISTORICAL REVIEW
Although goods were carried in flight almost coinciden-
tally-with the invention of the airplane, the air cargo
1
industry really developed after World War II. Military
experience showed shippers that goods could physically be .
moved by air - both in terms of volume and in terms of
reliability. After the War, some shippers, studying their
transportation needs, found that certain goods or situations
could economically command air use. That is, studies indicated
that air cargo had become the cheapest way of sending these
goods.
Recently air cargo has been growing at the rate of twenty
percent per year. Such a growth rate is somewhat deceiving
because of the small base involved. Air freight only amounts
to one tenth of one percent of all cargo ton-miles shipped in
this country. 2
Many studies have been done by the industry to study the
potential for air freight. 3 The goal was to determine
investment procedures and allocation of resources between
passenger services and freight services.
1For an exhaustive survey of air freight happenings from 1918
to 1945 see John Frederick, CotlercialAi
mi 'ransortation,
fourth edition, •(Homewood, Illinois, Richard D. Irwin Inc.,1955).
2 1963 Census of Transportation, Commodity Transportation
Survey - Production Area Series - Area 2, Advance Report
TC63 (A)C2-2, (Washington D.C., U.S. Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census, 1963), p. 4, table C.
3 See [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [11], [12], [13], [15], [1 6 ],
[19], [23], [27], [29], [34], [36], [40], [44], [45], [ 46 ],
[47], [48], [52], [53], [54], [64], [66], [67], [72], [77],
[78], [84], [85], [87], [88], [93], [94], [98], [103], [110],
[112], [117], [119], [122], [128].
2