What is a 'Normal' amount of cargo. Or should I say what is a realistic amount?  Is 7000lbs in both the FWD and AFT too much? 

 

Or do you just hit random to see what you get, for the sake of a challange?

From the airline that I fly with most of the time: http://www.virginaustralia.com/au/en/plan/baggage/checked-baggage/

 

• Checked baggage that exceeds a weight limit of 23kg (where applicable) will attract overweight baggage fees and will only be accepted and loaded onboard at our discretion.

So I go with *Amount of passengers on board* times 23kg = Freight weight. then add some mail cargo of about 1 tonne.

 

and I always use Metric, so convert that back to pounds if you need. Depending on the destination, I will loose the mail cargo and just go with the bags, assuming all the passengers bought the max allowable baggage and nobody bought too much (averages out enough).

 

In this way, if I have 160 passengers (basically full) then there's 3680kg of bags, split evenly = 1840kg in each compartment. 2340kg in each compartment if I have the extra tonne of mail.

There is always cargo such as packages, mail, animal shipments, medicals stuff, COMAT, etc. It all depends on the flight.

Is every flight different real world? Or very predictable?

What is your typical 4 hour holiday load?

Is every flight different real world? Or very predictable?

What is your typical 4 hour holiday load?

 

Bags are pretty typical but the rest can vary greatly, speaking from a regional airline holiday loads are about the same as any other day with approximately 70-80 bags for an ERJ and about 110 for a CRJ7. People kept saying it gets busy during thanksgiving and Christmas but I haven't noticed much of an increase since we are usually full. 

25 lbs X number of passengers X 1.4 = passenger bag/cargo weight.

 

The '1.4' value changes depending on season and type of passenger (ie: vacation passenger vs. oil charter). This method is utilized at a local 37 operator. 1.4 is a good mean between the extremes.

 

Mail and other stuff is on top of that. I usually add 250 lbs on top of everything for loose aircraft equipment and stuff that's may be carted around in the compartments (plugs, survival kit, etc etc.), then a 1000 pounds for pretend cargo or whatever.

Differs very much by airline, route etc... you can bet Ryanair will have a lot less loaded on their DUB-LON runs then say Southwest on a Hawaii flight.

OK great,  What are your settings in FWD CARGO and AFT CARGO, depending on your favorite airline scenerios?