Qantas Freight caught by volume surge

The airline hoped to have the backlog cleared today.

"It's just larger volumes than expected," a spokeswoman said, adding that there was no particular class of cargo which featured in the surge since the start of the week.

Qantas Freight told customers on Tuesday that it had been doing all it could to tackle the backlog.

"We are committed to doing everything possible to minimise the impact of the current situation including increasing staffing levels to assist [in clearing] the current volumes," head of terminals Bob Lugton said.