it's almost living and breathing.

Narrator: Every day, American Airlines

loads up 715,000 pounds of cargo onto planes.

And Dallas-Fort Worth is home to the airline's

largest cargo operation.

Live animals, food, PPE, and Legos end up on flights

headed as far as Shanghai or Frankfurt.

But getting the right cargo on the right plane

in time for takeoff is no easy task.

It takes a team of 220 people

to haul and fit thousands of pounds of freight into planes.

Matthews: It's 100 miles an hour.

There's no ramp-up.

Immediately, you're drinking from a fire hose.

Narrator: That's Mark. He took us inside

American's 171,000-square-foot

cargo facility

to see how crews keep cargo flying,

even as COVID-19 halts air traffic around the globe.

To keep moving freight,

American Airlines launched cargo-only routes

for the first time in 36 years.

In 2020, the airline sent out 5,000 cargo-only flights

across 39 new routes.

The massive cargo facility in Dallas

is located here at the airport.

It's broken down into inbound cargo here

and outbound cargo here.

Matthews: This is where the magic happens.

Narrator: The outbound center handles shipments

from trucks that will then be loaded onto planes.

Some trucks come from as far as Guadalajara and Mexico City.

Matthews: This is the drop-off dock back in the back,

and so that's where the shipments will come in.

Narrator: Goods are unloaded

and go right into the tracking system.

Matthews: That way the load planners can see

how much freight we're planning for a departure.

There's an army of forklifts,

and we'll try to keep you safe while you're here.

A lot of PPE, personal protective equipment, lately.

Ventilators, latex gloves.

Candy. Laffy Taffy. And this is from São Paulo, Brazil.

Narrator: Just like passengers and their bags

go through airport security, so does cargo.

Matthews: They come over here,

and they go through screening.

Every piece of cargo gets screened.

Narrator: Workers are looking for anything

that doesn't belong.

Once everything is screened, the goods are moved

to their designated locations in the warehouse --

even animals.

[barking]

In 2019, American moved 40,000 animals.

Matthews: It's not unusual to see

100 live animals a day.

We have one that's waiting anxiously

for his owner to pick him up.

Worker: Little Joey.

Narrator: Fruits, veggies, herbs, and flowers

head over to one of these three fridges.

Matthews: This is our perishables cooler.

Most of our fresh fruits and vegetables

come from Mexico or Central America,

sometimes from South America.

Next week we have about 20,000 pounds

of blackberries going to London.

Narrator: This area is for human remains.

Cherryl Fegurgur: We take care of our veterans.

When they're fallen soldiers,

that are very meaningful that we do ship.

Narrator: And, finally, any oversized cargo

heads to this section.

A few hours before departure time,

the cargo is tugged to a build station.

Matthews: So, here we're seeing that they're building

up freight for one of our outbound departures

onto a PMC.

Narrator: Workers build up cargo

on these aluminum pallets called PMCs.

Matthews: Using the expertise that he's developed over time,

he's looking at each shipment and deciding

what's the most efficient way that I can build this.

Narrator: But they can't

build the freight any taller

than 65 inches, so it can still fit

through the airplane door.

Matthews: You never know if it's going to be

raining in London when you get there,

so we protect everything from the elements

by wrapping it in plastic.

So they'll have plastic on the bottom,

they'll put plastic over the top,

wrap those two together,

and then put the cargo net over it to restrain everything.

Narrator: If it's food, flowers, or herbs,

they're loaded into temperature-controlled containers.

Matthews: They have batteries that maintain

the temperature inside the unit.

It's like shipping a refrigerator.

Narrator: These bundles of cargo, once built,

are called unit load devices, or ULDs.

Each ULD goes to be weighed.

A single container can't be over 3,500 pounds,

but the pallets can hold even more weight.

While it depends on weather, route,

and if passengers are on board, a Boeing 777-300

can carry up to 125,000 pounds of cargo.

Any more, and the plane could struggle to take off.

So it takes a lot of knowledge of the weight and dimensions

of every plane to get this right.

Matthews: A lot of expertise in building.

Many of these guys have 40 years or more.

Narrator: Finally, the ULDs are loaded onto tugs

and driven out to the plane.

Matthews: So, this is what we call the backyard.

This is where we stage wide-body cargo

that's ready to go to the aircraft,

and so all of these lanes have a letter.

In our system we can see what lane they're in,

so that the drivers know what to go get

and what to take to the aircraft.

This is the London departure that we were watching them

build the freight for earlier today.

It's all right there, about to be loaded.

Narrator: On this Boeing 787,

workers have three doors they can load cargo through.

The front and aft, or back, doors are the biggest.

The cargo is brought up to the height of the plane

using a lift.

The lift and the plane have rollers on the floor

to easily move the heavy load.

Matthews: He controls the rollers

from a control panel over here

on the side of the aircraft.

Narrator: This is the hard part.

It's like a game of Tetris,

trying to figure out what combinations

of containers and pallets will fit snugly.

But a plan helps.

Teams figure out where each ULD should go

to best use the space

and balance out the weight on the plane.

After everything's in the right place...

Matthews: There's floor locks that come up,

and they keep the cargo from shifting.

Narrator: Through the smaller door in the back...

Matthews: Which we call the aft bulk...

Narrator: Workers load any bulk cargo.

That's anything that's not built into a container

or onto a pallet.

Matthews: That's typically where we're going to put

live animals or really anything

that is connecting to this flight.

Narrator: And all this has to happen quickly.

Roger Samways: Consumers' expectations, as far as

delivery times, continue to increase, right?

We want our goods faster.

Narrator: On average, workers have about an hour

to load and lock all the ULDs

and any free-loaded cargo before the plane takes off.

And this whole process happens in reverse

for incoming planes carrying cargo.

Matthews: The freight's off the aircraft.

Our runner will come and pick it up

and take it back to our cargo facility.

From there, it goes through our breakdown process,

where we take it all off of the PMCs

and separate it based on airway bill number.

And then, from there, we stage it

in one of those locations that we saw earlier,

so that whenever the customer arrives,

we can load it on their vehicle.

And we have four hours from the time the aircraft locks in

until it's got to be ready for the customers to pick up.

Narrator: In 2019, American Airlines cargo

moved 122 million pounds

of freight every day,

but coronavirus made it harder.

In 2020, the airline averaged

only 101 million pounds daily.

When passenger volume dropped 75% in April,

the airline cut passenger routes that usually carry cargo.

Fewer routes also meant fewer direct flights.

That led to a lot more cargo connecting through Dallas.

Samways: It might have originated in Asia

or Europe, you know,

and it's passing on to Latin America.

And that introduces a lot of additional complexity.

You have to physically handle the freight a lot more often.

Narrator: But cargo still needs to be moved,

even if the world has stopped traveling.

Samways: We live in a globalized world

where not every country produces everything they need.

From cellphones to laptops, to clothes, to food,

relies on air-cargo transportation.

Narrator: But even with the introduction

of cargo-only flights, the airline has still lost billions.

Samways: It's a drop in the ocean,

but in no way does the additional cargo revenue

that we're generating offset the 75% drop

in passenger revenues that we've been seeing this year.

No big surprise we're going to post losses next year.

Narrator: So until passenger traffic

returns to normal, American plans to continue

flying and packing these cargo-only flights.

Samways: The goal, obviously, ultimately, hopefully quickly,

is for those aircraft to return to passenger service.

Matthews: Probably a theme going into next year

will be that everything's fluid

and we have to remain flexible.