Modelling containerisation of air cargo forwarding problems

This study presents a decision-making framework for modelling containerisation of air cargo forwarding problems. The objective is to help logistics managers make decisions about how to rent air containers from air carriers and how to load air cargos into these containers optimally. The air carriers can provide different types of air containers with differing weight and volume limits. The problem is further complicated by the cost charged by the air carriers: this is based on a fixed cost for using the container and a variable cost that depends on the weight that the container will hold. A mathematical programming model is formulated to minimise the total rental cost while satisfying the customer's shipping requirements. The objective function in the model, however, is a non-decreasing piece-wise linear one.