Anybody knows what the post “Dedicated freighter” means in the ratings page for each flight?
Also, I find it weird that cargo would bother to rate the aircraft condition and aircraft age, but I guess some of the cargo is alive…
We did have alive cargo some time back here in AS, even paying F class prices for traveling in dedicated freighter :)
Dedicated freighter is one of the product rating determinants.
AS doesn't differentiate between different types of freight. However, there is freight that just can't be transported by a regular passenger aircraft. Thus, this feature somehow includes this aspect.
Further, especially wide-bodies on long haul routes subsidize cargo by PAX income. Therefore, this can be seen as a correction value to balance the overall product rating.
Regarding the image factors, I agree with your point. However, aircraft age and condition only have an effect on the airlines image, not on the flight. Which holds true for RL in my opinion. Probably the thresholds would need an adjustment, as cargo is surely less demanding.
Last - I never had an issue with those points. I don't think you can run a global cargo business with old aircrafts. Cargo in a local area is very limited. And doing some cargo business mixed with regular passenger business within the same airline doesn't really work. Or from the perspective of a PAX-focus business - it is negligible.
AS doesn't differentiate between different types of freight. However, there is freight that just can't be transported by a regular passenger aircraft. Thus, this feature somehow includes this aspect.
But how do you improve it then? The more percentage the cargo space there is, the better the rating?
I'm also curious about the cargo contracts. What if you buy a certain amount of cargo handling but you don't actually transport that much (either by not assigning the full amount to flights, or simply the transported amount is less than 100% of assigned value), you still have to pay for the whole amount? On the other end, what if you overassign a contract?
Sorry, had to edit a part. Haven't had my morning coffee yet.
You pay for the maximum at the price negotiated every week. If there are 1000 slots, and you signed the contract at $10, you will pay $10,000 a week for the cargo handling, no matter how much is actually used. I believe the default AS charges is $11.
If you have 1000 slots for cargo handling, but you are transporting 2000, you will have to delegate which flights get the handling and which don't. You can only assign to your maximum. So in the above example, if you have 1000 handling slots, and 25 flights with 100 cargo capacity each, you have to choose which 10 flights you want to use the cargo handling. The rest will need to have another contract or use AS handling.
Thanks. A couple of points though.
I now built a terminal with my holding company and offered slots to my subsidies, and unless I did a very terrible deal, the default cargo cost is $25.
Moreover, I could indeed assign more slots than available, even though it show up as overbooked (red). Considering that in reality, your flights probably doesn't add up to the exact number of max capacity, it makes sense somehow. So, this makes me think that I don't pay for cargo up to the max amount (which is already paid for by the contract), but if there are more, even though they are assigned to a terminal, I pay the AS rate for the surplus, right?
I believe the default AS charges is $11.
For passengers, yes. For cargo it´s actually $25 per unit.