Dangerous goods are carried by air every day under a well-established regulatory framework. Charter can be a better route for DG than scheduled freight, because the aircraft is dedicated to your consignment and there is no competition for limited DG allocation on a commercial flight. What charter does not do is remove any of the compliance requirements.
This article is general guidance, not a compliance determination. Classification and acceptance for a specific consignment are made against the current ICAO Technical Instructions and IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations, the operator's own approvals and the requirements of the states on the routing.
The framework
Air transport of dangerous goods is governed by the ICAO Technical Instructions, applied commercially through the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations, and enforced by national authorities. In Australia, CASA. On top of that, each operator holds its own DG approvals and may impose additional company restrictions. A shipment can be legal under the regulations and still be refused by a particular operator.
Classification comes first
Everything follows from the UN number, proper shipping name, class or division and packing group. Common charter consignments include flammable liquids and gases, corrosives, oxidisers, batteries, aerosols, paints and resins, oilfield and mining chemicals, and equipment containing residual fuel or hydraulic fluid. Machinery is a frequent trap: a generator, pump or vehicle with fuel in the tank is a dangerous goods shipment even when nobody thinks of it as one.
Lithium batteries
Lithium cells and batteries have their own detailed rules covering state of charge, packing instruction, whether they are shipped standalone, packed with equipment or installed in equipment, and net quantity per package. Damaged, defective or recalled batteries are handled under separate and much stricter provisions. See our lithium battery air charter guide.
What is genuinely restricted
A limited set of substances is forbidden from air transport in any circumstances. Others are permitted on cargo aircraft only, which is precisely where a freighter charter helps, cargo-aircraft-only quantities and classes that cannot travel on a passenger service can often move on a dedicated freighter.
Packaging, marking and documentation
DG must be packed in UN-specification packaging appropriate to the substance and packing group, correctly marked and labelled, and accompanied by a Shipper's Declaration for Dangerous Goods prepared by trained personnel. Shipper DG training is a regulatory requirement, not a formality. Errors on the declaration are the most common reason a DG consignment is rejected at acceptance.
Segregation, loading and the crew
Incompatible classes must be segregated on the deck, load positions may be constrained, and the operator issues a NOTOC (Notification to Captain) advising the crew of what is aboard and where. For mixed consignments, the load plan is built around segregation requirements as much as around weight distribution.
Permits and states on the routing
Some states impose additional requirements or approvals for particular classes, including overflight. This is checked at routing stage, and occasionally the routing is adjusted to avoid a state whose approval timeline does not fit the operational window.
How to start
Send the UN numbers, proper shipping names, classes, packing groups, net quantities per package, package count and packaging type, along with origin, destination and ready date. We confirm acceptance with operators holding the right approvals and quote the routing. More detail: dangerous goods air freight.
