A freighter is a large ship or airplane designed specifically to carry cargo rather than passengers. While a cruise ship has swimming pools and restaurants for travelers, a freighter has massive holds and containers for transporting goods like cars, grain, electronics, or oil across oceans or continents.

Most of the products you see in stores traveled on freighters at some point. That banana from Central America, those shoes made in Asia, the steel used to build your school: freighters carried them. Some ocean freighters are enormous, stretching longer than three football fields and stacking shipping containers like giant LEGO blocks dozens of feet high.

Cargo planes are also called freighters. These aircraft haul packages, mail, and urgent shipments that need to arrive quickly. You might see a cargo freighter taking off at night, its fuselage packed with mail and packages instead of seats and passengers.

Today, whether crossing the Pacific Ocean or flying overnight across the country, freighters form the invisible network that keeps the global economy moving.