Abbreviation for
freight tonne kilometer, it is used in gauging the size of
air cargo carriers. If an aircraft carries 100 tonnes of cargo 1,000 kilometers, the aircraft earns 100,000 FTK's toward the airline's total.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics aside, the FTK is the fairest way to measure cargo carriers' size, as it is a composite of raw
tonnage and of the size of the carrier's
route network.
Counting by FTK's, the world's largest air cargo carrier by far is FedEx, followed by UPS, DHL, Northwest Airlines, and United Airlines.
The passenger airline equivalent of an FTK is an RPK.