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Virgin Atlantic Cargo is one of the largest air freight operators in the world. As part of a wider strategic development initiative, the company has identified forecasting accuracy as of strategic importance to its operational efficiency. This is because accurate forecast enables the company to have the right resources available at the right place and time. The purpose of this paper is to undertake an evaluation of current month-to-date forecasting utilized by Virgin Atlantic Cargo. The study employed demand patterns drawn from historical data on chargeable weight over a seven-year-period covering six of the company's routes.

A case study is carried out, where a comparison between forecasting models is undertaken using error accuracy measures. Data in the form of historical chargeable weight over a seven-year-period covering six of the company's most profitable routes are employed in the study. For propriety and privacy reasons, data provided by the company have been sanitized.

Preliminary analysis of the time series shows that the air cargo chargeable weight could be difficult to forecast due to demand fluctuations which appear extremely sensitive to external market and economic factors.

The study contributes to existing literature on air cargo forecasting and is therefore of interest to scholars examining the problems of overbooking. Overbooking which is employed by air cargo operators to hedge against “no-show” bookings. However, the inability of air cargo operators to accurately predict cargo capacity unlikely to be used implies that operators are unable to establish with an aspect of certainty their revenue streams. The research methodology adopted is also predominantly discursive in that it employs a synthesis of existing forecasting literature and real-life data for accuracy analysis.

The foundation collection of the printed books now forming the Library of the British Museum was that of Sir Hans Sloane. This comprised about 40,000 volumes. To it was added in 1759 the Royal collection, begun in the time of Henry VII and inherited by George II from his predecessors on the throne.

MR. JONATHAN HUTCHINSON, the eminent consultant, has just put forward a statement of the utmost importance with respect to the probable existence of a direct connection between the consumption of arsenic‐contaminated food and the occurrence of cancer. He points out that certain modern “improvements” in processes of production have led to the contamination of various food‐products with small amounts of arsenic, and observes that “if, as seems proved, the continuous use of arsenic in small medicinal doses can predispose the skin to multiple cancer there seems no reason for doubting that it may do the same for the other tissues, and for the mucous membranes and the viscera,” while there must necessarily also be “the constitutional tendency, the appropriate age, and, in some cases, the local irritation.” Mr. HUTCHINSON refers to the recent successful tracing of the Manchester outbreak of “peripheral neuritis” to the use of arsenic‐contaminated beer as an example of what may be caused by the habitual ingestion of minute doses of arsenic. It is a remarkable fact that the increase in the occurrence of cancer may be looked upon as almost synchronising with the increasingly extensive adoption of those “improved” modern methods of manufacture, not only of beer but of other food‐products, which open the door to arsenic‐contamination; together with the great increase in the use of arsenic in medical prescriptions.

Though the English newspaper was born in the early 1620s, government interference prevented it from developing into a regular feature of English life. The destruction of Charles I's government in 1641–42 saw the removal of censorship, and journalism burgeoned. For 20 years newspapers developed, first as independent institutions and then as government mouthpieces. Style and presentation improved, advertising was introduced, if not in sophisticated form, and many of the features of modern journals began to appear in the often confused period of freedom and censorship.