Air transport is an important part of modern international trade. Many countries are vigorously developing air transport. So, what are the characteristics of air transport? It mainly has the following characteristics.
Flexibility. As long as there are airports in the two places, you can fly routes without being affected by the terrain such as mountains, oceans and deserts. Therefore, the distance of air transportation is much shorter than that of other modes of transportation, and the aircraft type and route can be adjusted at any time according to the size of passenger flow or freight volume.
Security. The safety of air transport is higher than that of railway, sea transport and even higher than that of road transport. In recent years, the safety of air transport is constantly improving. According to the statistics of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the highest number of scheduled airline crashes in the world is 0.44 deaths per 100 million kilometers in 1966, which has dropped to 0.04 in recent years.
internationalization. Air transport allows countries to establish close ties with each other. International trade, whether a ton of goods or mail, can be easily, safely, economically and reliably transported from any place in the world at any time. This is a great contribution of air transport to international exchanges and human civilization for other modes of transport.
High cost. Due to the limited load of the aircraft, the high cost of aircraft manufacturing and fuel consumption, the cost of one flight is very high. Therefore, the cost of air transportation is high, which leads to the high price of passenger and freight transportation. It is only applicable to personnel exchanges, materials in urgent need of transportation, and mails and parcels with strong timeliness.
In summary, the main advantages of air transportation are as follows:
High speed direct access. Because the air is less restricted by natural geographical conditions, the shortest distance between two points is generally taken as the route.
High safety performance. With the progress of science and technology and the continuous technological innovation of aircraft, its safety performance is enhanced, and the accident rate is low and the insurance rate is correspondingly low.
Good economy and long service life.
The packaging requirements are low, because the stability of air navigation and the automatic landing system reduce the rate of goods exchange, so the packaging requirements can be reduced. Moreover, it has obvious advantages after avoiding the loss and damage of goods.
Maintain competitiveness and expand the market.
However, air transport also has some disadvantages:
Limited by climate conditions, the accuracy and normality of transportation are affected to a certain extent. Air transport is subject to severe weather conditions for safety.
Small transportation capacity and high energy consumption. Therefore, air transportation is applicable to the transportation of goods with high added value, low quality and small volume.
