Air shipping - Australia to California? - Horizons Unlimited

**davidmc** · #1 30 Mar 2006

We will be in Australia in a few months in July or August and I haven't seen anything on the shipping page or the HUBB for air shipping from Oz to the USA.

Would like to ship by air from either Sydney or Melbourne to somewhere in California, either San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Any contacts or information is appreciated.

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Dave
www.mototrekker.com

**simmo** · #2 30 Mar 2006

I hate it when I forget somethng i should know. Last year I helped organise flying Se Hwans f650 from Melb to LA. Let me think about it for a few days I am sure I will remember the company. the bike went with United and they handled pick up from BMW Melbourne (they gave us a empty crate), the Dangerous Goods form, while Se Hwan organised collection at the other end. Went well except for some confusion about permanent versus temporary import saga in LA.

**davidmc** · #3 1 Apr 2006

Any info would be appreciated, the Melbourne-LA route would be perfect...

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Dave
www.mototrekker.com

**Frank Warner** · #4 3 Apr 2006

If you look at actuall shipments by contients - Australia to Europe .. you'll find a few more firms listed - When your here try the Quantas Air Cargo for a base line, details on thet above page.

**davidmc** · #5 3 Apr 2006

Good idea, Frank. Still not a whole lot of air shipments coming out of Australia...

I may contact some of the airline cargo departments direct. I know Qantas and United fly to California from Australia, any other air carriers I should try?

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Dave
www.mototrekker.com

**simmo** · #6 3 Apr 2006

G'day David

Its taken a while but I have found the freight company I used for Se Hwan, who is on the Hubb as motoride.

www.marair.com.au

I havent found the copy of the reeipt though. From memory it was in the vicinity of 2000 AUD. The crates from BMW are 2 cubic metres which equates to approx 500 air Kgs.

They did as requested. And as I mentioned earlier the bike went United.

You can see the result at

http://blog.empas.com/motoride

under Aust and LA headings. Its a chunky site so best on ADSL or cable.

cheers

alec

[This message has been edited by simmo (edited 03 April 2006).]

**davidmc** · #7 4 Apr 2006

Thanks a ton, Alec, I will check them out. Also thinking about going to United direct, perhaps I can save a bit of money that way.

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Dave
www.mototrekker.com

**simmo** · #8 4 Apr 2006

You could, I have found that most airlines prefer to deal with a freight forwarder and they seem to be given more competitive rates than going direct. good luck.

**davidmc** · #9 15 Apr 2006

Marair is giving me a rate of $6.00 per kg plus $350, pretty pricey!

**Big Red** · #10 22 Jun 2006

I used Yusen Global Logistics around a year ago to ship from Melbourne to L.A. Excellent service, and it was a snap to unpack the bike in their L.A. warehouse and ride away. Total cost including getting the bike (BMW R1150GS Adventure) trucked to Melbourne airport in the crate, was around $3000AUD. Southbank BMW in Melbourne supplied the crate.

I'm about to use Yusen again to ship the bike home from L.A. but haven't a firm price yet.

And I promise to post all the shipping details when i get home!

Grant F.

**davidmc** · #11 4 Sep 2006

I also got a quote from Yusen, $3000AUD, still too much IMO. However, they were still the cheapest quote I received, others wanted as much as $5000AUD!

But I just made it home and I ended up flying from Sydney and going direct through Qantas. Many of the other airlines would only deal with agents.

After calling Qantas and getting conflicting information, I decided to go to Qantas Cargo direct at the Sydney airport. They let me ship the bike uncrated on the very next available flight and the only thing I had to do myself was get the Dangerous Goods form, which was a breeze.

Qantas let me ship the bike by weight and not by volumetric weight, which also saved me a bundle. The cost to ship from Sydney to Los Angeles came in between $1300-$1400USD for my 300kg bike loaded with gear. I think the unit cost was just under $5.00AUD per kg, plus $200 or so in fees and surcharges.

I met another guy who shipped from Brisbane to Los Angeles and had a similar experience. It seems like Qantas is the way to go for air shipping, but you will need to go direct to the airport to get info, the sales agents on the phone just couldn't give me a straight answer!

When I get settled in a bit I will post this shipping info to the shipping page.

**outthere** · #12 13 Dec 2006

Hi ,im in aust. and going through TOLL International 08/83411977 to send my bike to South Africa.They use volumemetric kilos,what this means is the smaller u can get the size of the package to the cheaper it is.Once i have the bike in Africa ill post more info,but the guy at TOLL is great to chat to and has no problem with the task at hand.They use a formula -L X B X D /6000 X $.So for my crate of 180cmx75cmx110cm its going to cost around $1600.As i said ill let u know how it realy went in a months time.

**davidmc** · #13 14 Dec 2006

Keep us posted on the total cost including crating, transportation, etc. This sounds pretty good for airfreight.

I found that when you crate your bike, the airlines will usually take the larger of the actual or volumetric weight. If you can ship it uncrated, often the airlines with give you either a flat fee or use the actual weight and ignore the volumetric weight. At least this has been my experience on three air shipments.

Best of luck with the shipment and don't forget to post a report on the shipping page when you get to Africa.