How much do flight delays cost shipping companies?

Factual Questions
1

I work for a large air freight shipping company repairing the trucks that fuel cargo planes. I have heard it casually thrown around the shop that a 1 minute delay on a cargo plane costs our company 10,000 dollars.

This seems ridiculous to me! But then again what do I know about the business side of these things?

Sometimes we catch delays due to not having enough trucks available for service. It seems that a single 10 minute delay would offset the cost of buying an entire new truck to add to the fleet.

Sometimes we catch a delay due to not enough personnel. It seems that one individual 4 minute delay would be a years salary for a new hire.

This seems like it can’t be true at all. Companies don’t get this big by making such foolish choices. So does anyone have any clue what the real average rate might be close to? Obviously no one knows, but is it closer to 50 a minute, 500 a minute, 5000 a minute?

2

My WAG is that the figure you’re being given, if it has any truth at all, only refers to a long-term average, and not every individual incident.

In other words, a single delay of 4 minutes will usually be of no consequence whatsoever. But every once in a while, it will set off a chain of events in which something misses a scheduled window of opportunity, and an important package will arrive on the second day instead of the first day, and someone will have to pay dearly for that. This incident might cost far over the $10K that you mentioned (especially if one factors in all sorts of expenses like the ephemeral “ill will” that was generated) but then it will average out with the freebies to a lower figure.