Chargeable weight

The greater of an air shipment's gross and volumetric weight, which is what air freight revenue is charged on. The air-mode volume unit, never added to TEU or pallets.

DefinitionThe greater of an air shipment's gross and volumetric weight, which is what air freight revenue is charged on. The air-mode volume unit, never added to TEU or pallets.

Chargeable, not gross

A report on gross weight understates light, bulky cargo. Use chargeable.

Per mode

Reconcile invoiced chargeable weight to booked chargeable weight for air; TEU for ocean; never across.

How it is computed

The greater of gross weight and volumetric weight, where volumetric weight is length times width times height divided by the carrier's divisor, commonly 6,000 for centimetres and kilograms.

Example

A carton of 120 by 80 by 100 centimetres weighing 90 kilograms has a volumetric weight of 160 kilograms. It is charged at 160.

Where it goes wrong

Air volume reported in gross weight. A customer shipping light, bulky goods looks small and is one of the largest by revenue.

Articles that use this term

Board and management reporting · Shipping and logistics

Ten questions a forwarding managing director asks, and the table that answers each

The ten questions the managing director of a freight forwarder puts to the branch and trade lane managers, what is lane share per customer and per mode, are TEU and kilograms ever added, which customer lanes lost reliability before the tender, what detention and demurrage did we absorb and for whom, how long does delivered freight wait for an invoice, which customs holds are the customer's own data, which customers are concentrated on one carrier, what is margin per file by branch, which customers went quiet by lane, and what changed, each with the table from the bookings, milestones and billing exports, and the answer to send back.

16 Sept 20262 min read Data quality and reconciliation · Shipping and logistics

TEU and chargeable weight: keeping ocean and air apart in one roll-up

How a forwarder builds one customer view across ocean and air without ever adding a container to a kilogram: mode as a dimension, units per mode, reconciliation per mode to invoiced volume, revenue as the only figure that sums across modes, and the reporting mistakes that follow when the two are blended.

16 Sept 20262 min read Data quality and reconciliation

The identity by industry: what has to sum to what on twelve desks

Every report on this site rests on an identity, a sum that must hold before any measure is read, and the sum is different on every desk: revenue to the ledger, TEU to booked TEU, seats to contracted seats, controls to the register, rental days to invoiced revenue. This hub gives, for twelve industries, the identity, the exports it joins, the failure it most often catches, and the guide where it is used.

16 Sept 20263 min read Wallet share and penetration · Shipping and logistics

Trade lane share per customer for freight forwarders and shipping lines

How a forwarder or carrier measures share per customer and trade lane from the booking system: TEU or chargeable weight won against the customer's total on the lane, office coverage against quotes logged, and the reconciliation to invoiced volume.

16 Sept 20263 min read Board and management reporting · Shipping and logistics

Commercial KPIs for freight forwarders and shipping lines: ten measures that matter, each with its formula and the export it comes from

The ten commercial KPIs a freight forwarder or shipping line should run on, each with its formula, the export it comes from and what it tells you: trade lane share per customer, volume by mode kept apart, transit time reliability per customer lane, customs hold rate and cause, detention and demurrage per customer, booking to invoice cycle, gross profit per shipment, customer concentration by gross profit, quote conversion by lane, and dormant customer lanes. Also the three measures most forwarders miss, the figures to drop, the identities, and who owns what.

17 Sept 20264 min read