Calculating the cost of air shipments to the United States: taxable weight

In the world of international air cargo shipping, one cubic meter must weigh at least 167 kilograms. This is known as the "standard density": 167 kilograms is the standard density for a cubic meter when shipping to the United States by air.

This means that if you need to ship one cubic meter of goods from France to New York, and this cargo is not very dense (for example, shoes already packed in their retail box), it's likely that your cubic meter weighs less than 167 kilograms.

In that case, the airline will still charge you for 167 kilograms. This is called "volume-based taxation."

However, if you need to ship books to Miami (the quintessential dense cargo), your cubic meter will weigh much more than 167 kilograms. In that case, the air cargo company will charge you based on the actual weight.

But how does the volume-based shipping cost calculation work for air shipments?

Let's assume you have a package weighing 34 kilograms with the following dimensions:

• Length: 70 cm
• Width: 80 cm
• Height: 50 cm

What is the taxable weight? Is it the actual weight of 32 kilograms, or is a volumetric weight calculation needed? And if so, how many taxable kilograms would there be?

• First, calculate the volume of the package, which is 70 x 80 x 50 = 280,000 cubic cm.
• Next, calculate the standard weight for a package of 280,000 cubic centimeters, which is: 167 / 1,000,000 * 280,000 = 46.7 kg.
• Since the actual weight is 32 kilograms, which is less than the standard weight, we will use the volumetric weight (46.7 kg) to calculate the shipping cost.