Qatar hosts the biggest animal cargo center in the world. We visited the hub to see how crews keep precious loads safe in 100-degree heat.
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00:00These pandas just flew into Qatar from China.
00:08The crew has carefully planned for their journey for months, managing their stress, health,
00:15and controlling the temperature.
00:18Qatar is home to the largest animal cargo center in the world, and about half a million
00:25of them travel through here every year, from horses to birds and tiger cubs.
00:33Literally our VP of the airport, he actually with his team figured out what music is best
00:38for the animals to help calm them down.
00:41But Qatar is also one of the hottest places on earth, averaging 100 degrees Fahrenheit
00:47in the summer.
00:49Animals could easily overheat if they sit on a plane for too long.
00:54This is especially challenging when the center handles 2.4 million metric tons of freight
01:00a year, almost as much as FedEx some years, including luxury cars and fresh food.
01:08It's a massive game of Tetris, and when you play Tetris at this level, you need to
01:12always be a little more creative.
01:14So how did this tiny country become the world's cargo hub?
01:20And how do crews protect precious cargo in blazing heat?
01:31Unloading the freighter is a race against the clock.
01:35Crews have to do it in about 45 minutes.
01:39It may sound like a lot, but these packs weigh thousands of pounds and take time to move
01:45off the plane.
01:47Crews have another 650 flights to handle today.
01:51This operation runs like a Swiss watch.
01:54Everybody is in a proper place.
01:56Mark Druch is in charge of the thousands of people who work at the center.
02:02Most flights are operated by Qatar Airways, headquartered here in Doha.
02:07Think about the geography.
02:08We sit within eight hours of two-thirds of the world's population.
02:13When Qatar's state-run airline started flying in 1994, it was so small it only served
02:19a few destinations, mostly regional ones.
02:23But in 1997, a new CEO saw Doha's location, just a few hours from Africa and manufacturing
02:31hubs in China and India, as a major asset.
02:36He decided to turn it into a cargo hub.
02:39To make that happen, the airline started selling cargo space on passenger planes and
02:45flying to more places.
02:47In 2003, Qatar Airways purchased its first cargo-only plane, and plans to build a modernized
02:55airport in Doha began.
02:57By the time Hamad International Airport opened in 2014, Qatar Airways' cargo fleet had
03:03expanded eightfold.
03:05By 2021, the fleet had more than tripled in size.
03:10Cargo accounted for 63% of the company's revenue.
03:14And Qatar Airways emerged as one of the world's largest freight carriers, outperformed only
03:20by FedEx that year.
03:22Now its network connects 178 destinations, on every continent except Antarctica.
03:29The cargo revenue on board is part of making that airplane profitable.
03:33Some airlines have reported cargo accounting for up to 40% of the revenue made off a single
03:39flight.
03:41Once all those packages make it off the plane, step two is to get them inside one of these
03:47buildings that make up this massive cargo center, just north of Hamad's passenger terminals.
03:55And the crew has to do it fast.
03:57The extreme heat could kill some of the cargo.
04:00We carried over half a million animals last year.
04:05Crews separate the animals into different rooms.
04:09These two white tiger cubs get their own.
04:12Sounds from other animals could rile them up.
04:15They just came off an eight-hour flight from Johannesburg, South Africa.
04:20In advance, before we book any animal, we make sure that our vets are aware that they're
04:24coming in.
04:25So if there's a vet that happens to be a specialist in tigers or lions or rhinos, whatever, we'll
04:30make sure that that is available.
04:33By law, these cubs need to have enough space to stand up, lie down, and spin around.
04:40In nine hours, they'll board an hour-long flight to Dubai.
04:45Transporting animals by plane is considered the most humane way to move them, because
04:50it's the fastest.
04:52Plane tickets range in price from a couple hundred to thousands of dollars, depending
04:57on how much care the animal needs.
05:01But Mark says the airline doesn't charge for every animal.
05:06This lion, for example, flew for free because it was being rescued from captivity in a zoo.
05:12We have carried tigers, lions, bears, hippos, rhinos from different facilities to bring
05:19them back into reserves where they belong.
05:26Another room in the center hosts the birds.
05:30There are 300 in here today.
05:32They came in on the same flight as the tiger cubs.
05:36They're heading to Lebanon.
05:40Qatar Airways flies about 6,000 birds every year, but it does limit which animals it will
05:47bring on board.
05:49Like none for lab testing, and no endangered ones, unless they're being rewilded.
05:57About 80% of the animals the airline flies are actually pets, mostly dogs and cats.
06:05Staff have to measure the pets first, to make sure their kennels are the right size.
06:11Animals can die from stress if they're kept in cages that are too small.
06:16The animal center has eight vets for every shift.
06:19We make sure the owner knows when the animal's been loaded, when the animal's been unloaded,
06:24if they're transiting, how they're doing.
06:26We even have pictures that we send them to show them that here's how your animal's doing.
06:31Every year, about 10,000 horses pass through the cargo center.
06:35They agitate easily, so the staff have to get creative.
06:40Sometimes they play soothing music.
06:43To help calm them down.
06:44These stalls for the horses, they're padded, so that the horses, since they're standing
06:48so much, it's easier on their feet.
06:51This 150-pound Neapolitan mastiff flew in from Dublin and is headed to Melbourne.
07:00These two Spaniels came from Sydney on a 15-hour flight.
07:05They're about to board their next one, an eight-hour flight to Lisbon.
07:10But before they can board, staff need to get them buckled in.
07:15That happens here.
07:17They put most of the cargo, including animals, onto an aluminum base and fasten it with hooks.
07:25A net goes on top to keep the cages extra steady in case of turbulence.
07:31Crews need to leave extra space on the pallet so the animals get enough airflow and oxygen.
07:38These dogs are allowed to fly in the cabin.
07:42So are falcons.
07:45They even get their own passports.
07:48Most pets have to fly in cargo.
07:52Those tickets usually cost between $200 and $400.
07:57The airline also flies fresh food, which accounts for about 20% of its cargo.
08:04Like these packs of Norwegian salmon.
08:07They can't wait on the tarmac in Qatar's blazing heat, either.
08:11Drugs would spoil, too, so they all need special storage — inside the climate-controlled wing.
08:18This building is split into four zones, with two temperatures, 15 to 25, and 2 to 8 Celsius,
08:26for meat products, pharmaceutical products, perishable products, flowers, etc.
08:31Do you ever come in here just to take a break?
08:33I would love to come in here all the time.
08:37About one-third of the cargo this airline carries requires extra special care.
08:44Think things like ammunition, oil and gas equipment, even human remains, and radioactive materials.
08:52That's also part of what we call dangerous goods.
08:54You know, dangerous goods, it's scary.
08:56We don't want anything to ever, ever, ever go wrong.
08:59But the majority of the cargo the airline flies is actually mail.
09:04A lot of e-commerce we carry nowadays, also.
09:06It's Amazon, Sheen, Timu, everybody.
09:11At each of these cargo gates, all the pallets get sorted, broken down and separated.
09:18Crews call all of these giant packs unit load devices, or ULDs.
09:25All the boxes on this one ULD have the same flight,
09:29so they take a ride on massive elevators to this waiting room.
09:35But if the boxes inside have different connecting flights, like on this ULD,
09:41crews unpack and separate them.
09:44They break down about 850 of these every day.
09:48We have workstations that are lowerable, down by 1.25 meters,
09:52and that makes it a lot easier to break down that freight to handle the cargo.
09:57They randomly select up to 800 of them to send here for an x-ray.
10:02That's to make sure the weight on the label matches the cargo's actual weight.
10:08The airline says the total weight of the cargo load can't exceed about 230,000 pounds
10:14for its planes to take off safely.
10:17If the weights match, they sort the package into one of these cages
10:22to join other ones with the same connecting flight.
10:26When it's time to fly, the packages are built into new ULDs
10:30that'll perfectly fit the curved belly of the plane.
10:34The loading team uses this elevator platform to get the pallet even with the cargo hold.
10:41A rolling track helps it slide right in,
10:44while this rubber wheel, called the power drive unit,
10:48takes the brunt of the weight so workers don't have to push these heavy pallets.
10:54These small hooks lock the pallets in place.
10:58Mark says the heaviest ULD needs to go in the middle.
11:02It can weigh up to 17 tons, about twice the weight of some cruise ship anchors.
11:08If we're putting a jet engine on the aircraft,
11:12because it's so heavy and so dense, you can't put cargo in front of it
11:16because the aircraft then would be tilted.
11:19For cargo workers on airlines around the world, weight might be the biggest challenge.
11:25When you're flying, it's not just your bags on the bottom, there's also cargo.
11:30Most air cargo flies under passenger planes.
11:34Everything else goes on freighter planes, which don't carry passengers.
11:40Lufthansa and Pan Am were some of the first airlines to use them, starting in the 1940s.
11:47But the industry didn't really take off until the early 70s,
11:52shortly after Boeing introduced its 747, which was the widest aircraft at the time.
11:59Its loading deck opens up like this, so huge freight can roll right in.
12:06One 747 can weigh about a million pounds with cargo.
12:11But sending stuff on planes used to be more expensive because freighters were pretty rare.
12:18As more airlines added them to their fleets, which also became more fuel-efficient,
12:23the additional supply started pushing air freight prices down.
12:28That's why the teams make sure they maximize the space.
12:32The freight part of the business is much more complex than the passenger side.
12:37One thing that can make it easier on cargo facilities?
12:40Sticking to just one type of plane.
12:43That makes it easier and more efficient because each aircraft has a unique shape.
12:47If you have different shapes, you have to rebuild the pallet.
12:51That's why Qatar Airways wants to eventually fly just 777s.
12:58Lifting all this cargo into the air takes two of one of the most powerful jet engines ever made.
13:06Just one of them costs $24 million.
13:10That's part of what makes these carriers so expensive.
13:14These things are not cheap to operate.
13:16So an investment in a cargo facility and a cargo fleet is a massive capital investment
13:22as well as a very big operating expense investment.
13:26Fuel alone sucks up about $6.9 billion worth in a year,
13:30more than two and a half times what the airline spends on employee pay and benefits.
13:35So we're always looking at ways to reduce our fuel burn and carbon footprint.
13:40Qatar Airways hopes the 50 new Boeing 777-8Fs it ordered
13:45will help it reduce freighter emissions by 25%.
13:49We are right now in the plans to build a facility that will more than double the capacity we have here.
13:55Worldwide, planes transport about $6 trillion worth of goods annually.
14:01That accounts for about 35% of world trade,
14:05even though they move just a tiny chunk of the cargo transported annually.
14:11Ships, which can carry much larger loads for cheap, move the bulk of it.
14:17But demand for air freight is going up because of e-commerce,
14:22which requires fast delivery times, and ships can take weeks to arrive.
14:28Right now, there are about 2,200 freighter planes operating worldwide,
14:33and reports project that will increase by about 75% by 2041.
14:40As for Mark, he hopes to hop on board one day.
14:44I have not flown on a cargo aircraft yet,
14:46and I've talked to our chief pilot about I've got to find the right opportunity to do that.
14:50But for now, he's just eager to see what they'll be challenged to fly next.
14:56You can come down here and see an incredible car that's been shipped.
14:59You can see a new version of an electric Mercedes.
15:03You can see an exotic.
15:04You can see an antique car.
15:06And I got to tell you, that's really cool.