You Are Paying Air Freight on Your Pallet, Not Just Your Product
Every kilogram of packaging is billed like product. Here is the arithmetic most shippers never run — and what it reveals about your margin.
Air freight is priced per kilogram. The carrier does not distinguish between the goods your customer ordered and the timber they happen to be sitting on. Both are billed at the same rate.
That makes packaging weight a direct, recurring, and entirely avoidable cost — one that hides inside a freight invoice rather than appearing on a purchase order, which is exactly why it survives budget reviews year after year.
The arithmetic nobody runs
A standard wooden export pallet weighs roughly 25kg. An equivalent paper honeycomb pallet weighs around 5kg. That is 20kg of tare weight removed from every single pallet position.
At a typical RM20 per kilogram air freight rate, 20kg saved is about RM400 per pallet. Ship 250 pallets a month and that is RM100,000 a month, or RM1.2 million a year, paid to move timber across borders.
The same maths in dollar terms: at US$4.50 per kilogram, 20kg saved is roughly US$90 per pallet, or around US$45,000 across a 500-pallet programme.
Where the cost hides
Freight is usually booked as a single line item, so packaging weight never appears as its own cost centre. Procurement negotiates the pallet unit price — often a few ringgit — while logistics quietly pays hundreds of ringgit per pallet to fly it.
The purchase price of a pallet is a one-time cost. The freight cost of its weight repeats on every shipment, for the life of the shipping programme.
Sea freight behaves differently but is not immune: heavier packaging reduces payload within container weight limits, and in dimensional-weight pricing, bulky low-density packaging costs even when it is light.
Run the numbers for your own lane
The calculation needs only three inputs: pallets shipped per month, your negotiated freight rate per kilogram, and the tare weight difference between your current pallet and a honeycomb equivalent (typically 20kg).
Multiply them and you have your monthly saving. Our savings calculator on the homepage does this in your own currency and detects your local rate defaults, so you can sanity-check the figure against your latest freight invoice.
One caution worth stating plainly: these figures assume air freight, where weight is the dominant cost driver. For sea freight, the savings are real but smaller, and the stronger arguments become ISPM-15 exemption, handling safety, and disposal cost.
What you do not give up
Lighter packaging is only worth it if the cargo still arrives intact. Honeycomb load capacity is engineered through core thickness, cell size, and paper grade — the hexagonal geometry distributes load across cell walls, which is why a board that is mostly air behaves structurally like timber.
Engineered panels handle compression forces around 12kN, and pallet-grade builds carry static loads comparable to plywood for typical export cargo. Where honeycomb is genuinely the wrong choice is permanently wet environments and closed-loop reuse over many years.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a paper honeycomb pallet weigh compared to wood?
A standard honeycomb pallet weighs around 5kg against roughly 25kg for a comparable wooden export pallet — about 80% lighter, removing around 20kg of billable tare weight per pallet.
How do I calculate my own air freight saving?
Multiply pallets shipped per month by 20kg saved per pallet, then by your freight rate per kilogram. At 250 pallets a month and RM20/kg, that is 250 x 20 x 20 = RM100,000 per month.
Do the savings apply to sea freight as well?
Partially. Sea freight is priced primarily by container rather than weight, so the direct saving is smaller. The benefits there come from payload capacity within weight limits, ISPM-15 exemption, safer handling, and free disposal at destination.
Check the figure against your own invoice
Use the savings calculator in your currency, or send us your lane details and monthly volume and we will model it with you.