• Early air cargo began after World War One, using passenger or military facilities, with small high-value loads like silk flown for speed and convenience. Initial operations relied on manual labour and rudimentary equipment, often carried in passenger sheds or hangars.
• The first purpose-built cargo terminals appeared in the late 1930s at Berlin Tempelhof and New York LaGuardia, introducing dedicated buildings, conveyors, sorting rooms, and apron access, signalling the start of professionalised airfreight infrastructure.
• Post-war developments, including wide-body jets and palletisation, enabled larger volumes, mechanised handling, climate control, and integrated IT systems, transforming air cargo from improvised operations into a structured, high-efficiency logistics industry.

Although aviation’s earliest pioneers were already dreaming of moving goods by air at the turn of the twentieth century, scheduled air cargo services did not meaningfully emerge until the years immediately after the First World War. In those early days, the airport as we understand it today was still in gestation, and freight activities tended to piggyback on facilities intended primarily for adventurous passengers or for military operations. Yet even from those makeshift beginnings, air cargo proved itself both commercially promising and technologically transformative. 

The first recorded official airfreight flight took place on 7 November 1910, when a Wright Model B delivered around 90 kilograms of silk from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio. This flight, arranged as a publicity exercise, demonstrated the possibilities of moving small, high-value goods rapidly over distances that would have been slower or more cumbersome by rail. Early European efforts followed, with the first regularly scheduled air mail flights in the 1910s and early 1920s often carrying small parcels alongside letters. At many early aerodromes, there was no true freight terminal as such; cargo was stored in passenger sheds or military hangars, and loading tended to be a matter of strong backs and rudimentary equipment rather than any formal system.

First purpose-built airfreight terminals 

The world’s first purpose-built airfreight terminal is generally credited to the facilities developed in the late 1930s at airports such as Berlin Tempelhof and New York’s LaGuardia, both of which incorporated dedicated cargo buildings into their original designs. Tempelhof, opened in 1936, was particularly influential because it integrated all aspects of airport operations into a single monumental structure. Its freight and post facilities were not mere add-ons but carefully planned spaces with conveyors, sorting rooms and direct apron access to streamline the movement of goods. Although not a pure cargo terminal in the modern sense, it represented the first attempt to conceive airport freight handling as a professionalised, mechanised operation rather than an improvised afterthought. Meanwhile, LaGuardia’s 1940 air freight terminal – publicised as the world’s first fully commercial air cargo building – signalled the beginning of cargo infrastructure as an expected component of major airports. 

In the earliest era of airfreight, the design and construction of most aircraft limited what could actually be carried. Loading and unloading were often awkward and physically demanding processes. Aircraft such as biplanes and early monoplanes had narrow cabin doors or small cargo hatches, sometimes requiring freight to be dismantled or repackaged so it could fit. Boxes, parcels and mailbags were typically carried aboard by hand, with ground staff forming human chains to pass items into the fuselage. Fragile goods were bundled in straw or cloth. There were no forklifts in widespread use at aerodromes until well into the 1930s, and certainly no mechanised loaders calibrated to aircraft floor heights. Pilots and mechanics themselves often helped with loading, partly to ensure weight and balance calculations were correct, but also because the entire ethos of early aviation demanded a hands-on familiarity with one’s machine.

In the inter-war years, as airlines began flying converted bombers or custom-built transports, the inside of an aircraft might contain simple anchor points, canvas straps and wood-slat floors intended to prevent cargo from shifting in flight. Yet efficiency remained elusive. Goods were weighed using basic scales in small wooden sheds. To move packages from an administrative office to the aircraft, workers might wheel them across grass on handcarts or even carry them manually across muddy fields in bad weather. Only the highest-value items – banknotes, jewellery, documents requiring rapid delivery, perishables such as flowers -justified the cost and inconvenience of air transport.

The Second World War accelerated the development of airfreight infrastructure more than any other factor. Military logistics demanded rapid, heavy air transport, and immense wartime investment in larger aircraft, paved runways and more sophisticated ground equipment created the conditions for civil air cargo to flourish afterwards. Cargo variants of the Douglas DC-3, the Curtiss C-46 and the massive C-54 Skymaster introduced innovations such as wide cargo doors, reinforced floors and, critically, higher payload capacity. Air bases built by the Allies often included depots for bulk goods, hangars with integrated storage areas and mechanical handling equipment that far surpassed anything available to civil operators before the war. When civilian carriers inherited surplus aircraft and infrastructure in the late 1940s, they also inherited the idea that freight could be a regimented, large-scale business.

Separating freight from passengers 

In the post-war period, airports began to design cargo terminals intentionally, separating freight activities from passenger flows. Early cargo buildings often resembled warehouses more than airport structures, with long sheds positioned perpendicular to the apron. Inside were sorting rooms, customs offices and bays for lorries. Conveyors became more common, although still rudimentary by modern standards. Palletisation – the practice of stacking goods on standardised pallets – emerged in the 1950s, dramatically speeding up the movement of freight and encouraging airports to invest in stronger floors, higher doorways and specialised loading docks. The arrival of wide-body jets in the late 1960s and early 1970s, starting with the Boeing 747, transformed expectations yet again. The 747 Freighter’s nose-loading door, powered cargo systems and ability to accept containerised loads made it possible to move vast quantities of goods rapidly and reliably. Airports adapted by building larger, more sophisticated cargo terminals capable of handling unit load devices, refrigerated goods and hazardous materials. 

Today’s cargo facilities – with automated sorters, climate-controlled rooms, high-throughput docks and integrated IT system – would be unrecognisable to the pioneers who hauled silk into rickety biplanes. Yet the story remains consistent: airfreight has always been shaped by a dance between technological possibility and commercial need. From rough grass fields with little more than a shed and a scale, to vast logistics complexes handling millions of tonnes a year, airports have evolved constantly to keep pace with a world that demands speed. Air cargo was born by improvising, but it matured into one of aviation’s most precise sciences.