Multi-commodity flow problem. What if only one commodity? (Context: column generation)

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What problem can arise when the number of commodities is only one when looking at a multi-commodity flow problem?

This question was asked by my professor in the context of column generation and branch-and-price.

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When you have a multi-commodity flow problem with only one commodity then the problem reduces to an ordinary network flow problem. It is still possible to apply column generation and branch-and-price algorithms, howevere, ordinary network flow problems will be much faster in most cases.