Quick work question –

Has anyone here ever airfreighted anything big and heavy, and have a rough idea of costs.

We’ve got a ride and associated gubbins, that is approx 200kg in total weight, and takes up roughly 1/2 the space in a (short wheelbase) transit van.

I don’t have exact enough details to get a proper airfreight quote, but I’d like to have some kind of ballpark figure, just to see if it is feasible from a financial point of view.

So, does anyone have any idea how much sending something like this to Vancouver would cost? Does anyone know of any airfreight company with an online calculator, so I can play with dimensions / packing / weights to get an idea of cost?

Try Rock-It cargo. They deal in live event industry freight forwarding, so should have a handle on that kind of thing.

Have you tried UPS? Heaviest I’ve shipped was smaller and weighed about 50Kgs, but cost about £200 shipped to the states about 8 years ago.
Not much help but it may give you an idea.

If I was going to guess I’d say it would be crazy expensive by air, several hundred if not a thousand pounds at least. Shipping by, errr, a ship would work out much cheaper, so might be worth looking at as well.

Here is an up to date quote for you.

I recently (Nov 2011) air freighted two standrd UK pallets of light but bulky goods to the UK from Malaysia. Total weight was only 17kg and it cost us £2000 door to door.

I recently (Nov 2011)

You are Dr Who and I claim my £5.00 🙂

two standrd UK pallets of light but bulky goods to the UK from Malaysia. Total weight was only 17kg

😯 Cotton wool or plastic bags full of air?

Hmm. I tried UPS, and it is not looking cheap (£2000 for a week and a bit service). The ‘volumetric weight’ is looking like being something like 1600kg, so they charge you for that weight (ouch!).

I’ve looked into shipping, not cheap, but big problem is the 6 week timescale, meaning it being out of action for 12 weeks.

Joe

Geodis Wilson

we use this lot for big stuff.

big problem is the 6 week timescale

6 weeks? I assume thats london-nyc(or similar) and then by land? No way you’d get something shipped all the way in six weeks.

I can get a quote for you but it’ll be in line with figures mentioned.

The costs that you have already identified and those that the other guys have posted on this thread are all as I would expect. Air Freight / Cargo is expensive as it is classed a premium service.

If you go to someone such as UPS, FEDEX, TNT, DHL, ARAMEX etc etc they will probably all come back at around similar costs, oh and contrary to popular conception, you can send anything and I literally mean anything using a courier company.

Its worth shopping around, try some of the independant Air Freight Forwarders or even direct with some of the airlines such as Air Transat (Canadian Company).

book a flight and take it as excess baggage 😉