Some dangerous goods are too dangerous to be carried by aircraft under any circumstances. Any article or substance which, as presented for transport, is liable to explode, dangerously react, produce a flame or dangerous evolution of heat or dangerous emission of toxic, corrosive or flammable gasses or vapors under conditions normally encountered in transport must not be carried on aircraft under any circumstance. The others may be carried on cargo aircraft only and some are acceptable on both cargo and passenger aircraft.
To determine properly in which category your shipment is classified, you need to know your cargo. The first step is to obtain MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) of your product. You can get it either from the manufacturer or distributer. Every MSDS document contains transportation section in which you can find information about DG classification of your product ( Class 1 – 9, Packing Group I, II & III, proper identification, packing and transport requirements ).
The shipper is responsible for identifying and classifying all dangerous goods intended for transport by air. Before packing any dangerous goods for transport by air, the shipper must: (a) identify all articles and substances that meet a criteria as DG (b) classify each item of DG by determining under which of nine classes it fails (c) where relevant, assign each item of DG to one of the three packing groups within assigned class or division.
There are certain products that are not considered as DG, but which transport require using some DG packaging such as Carbon Dioxide (dry ice), aerosols etc.
There are some circumstances when people not knowingly ship their own personal effects which contain some dangerous goods, so called “hidden DG in general cargo”., such as aerosols, polishes, solvent based paint, ammunition, matches etc. It is imperative to give us a full list of your personal items which you are shipping.
