Let\u2019s start with the numbers.<\/p>\n
The Port of Los Angeles moves the most containers of any port in the world, carrying 182.8 million metric tons of freight. Nearby Los Angeles International Airport moved 2.1 million tons<\/a> of cargo in 2016.<\/p>\n Maersk is the world\u2019s largest<\/a> shipping company, with more than 16 percent of market share<\/a>, 15 percent of all sea freight capacity, and 652 ships.<\/p>\n FedEx operates the world\u2019s largest air freight business, moving<\/a> 15.8 billion metric ton-kilometers\u2019 worth of cargo on 657 planes<\/a> from more than 375 airports.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll notice that the sea freight business is significantly larger than air freight. But why?<\/p>\n Today\u2019s newest and largest cargo ships can carry a lot more stuff a lot more efficiently. The OOCL Hong Kong<\/a>, currently the largest, has a capacity of more than 21,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Ship sizes have increased dramatically in recent decades \u2014\u00a0back in 2003, OOCL\u2019s newest and largest ship carried barely 8,000 TEUs, which was then the most in the world.<\/p>\n A freighter plane, by comparison, can only carry about 4 TEUs at once.<\/p>\n In addition to these economies of scale, ocean shipping is significantly better for the environment and a great deal more fuel efficient. Each metric ton shipped by cargo ship produces about 15 grams of CO2 \u2014 less than 3 percent of the 545 grams per metric ton created with air travel.<\/p>\n