Hi all,

Just wanted to add another option to the advice given by Ed in his post a few weeks back, here. When he and Chris arrived at LHR, they got charged quite a lot of money to release the bikes, which was something I was keen to avoid, particularly as I may have been shipping just one bike, which would have landed me with £225 in charges (£150 per airpallet, and £75 per bike) at the LHR end. So, after they went home, I did a bit more digging.

The reason we picked SAA for their bikes is that, bizarrely, they will agree to charge on weight as opposed to volume - normal policy is whichever is larger. The other advantage is that they appear to be the only airline who'll deal directly with the public rather than through an agent - so it seems you must be saving money.

But because the others won't deal direct, you don't find out that pretty much every airline other than SAA is cheaper per kilo. And as well as providing a custom made pallet, MMA Consolidators can also organise the airfreight itself with whichever airline is going to be most convenient/give the best rate.

Volumetric weight is volume in cubic centimetres divided by 6000. (i.e. 6 litres counts as a kilo).

Our laden Africa Twins each weighed about 300kg on their pallets, but fully built up, the Honda dimensions stack up as 616 "volumetric kilograms". However, With the front wheel taken out, the top fairing off and the panniers stacked up on one side, I got mine down to 313 volumetric-kg, including the pallet.




MMA charged R7800 (approx £520) for the airfreight and the custom made pallet, I did the customs stuff at the CT end the same way as Ed, and I paid £90 or so in charges when it arrived in the UK (MMA pre-arrange it with Menzies so you get a better deal).

One word of warning though - MMA did manage to mess up the dangerous goods declaration, so you need to be firm on that being done right (filled out in in print and signed by someone qualified to do so), or you may end up with your bike arriving a day late, as I did. Bradley was very embarrassed though, so I don't think he'd make that mistake again.

By contrast with Ed's experience, Menzies did manage to get my Carnet stamped into the UK though, so less hassle there.

And for reference, my Virgin Atlantic Cattle Class one-way airfare was just over £320, so the bike cost less than two people.

For reference, MMA in Cape Town are very near the airport, at: S33°58.762 E018°35.192
Bradley's number at MMA is 0842092586.

Hope this helps,
dan.

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Hi all

We just got our bikes from Cape Town to Auckland packed and shipped by MMA.

Other than the following, we were really happy:

1) the actual price was about 15% higher than the quote price
2) the ongoing communication was about a 3/10.
3) the bikes arrived 3 weeks after we had asked for them to arrive, despite having plenty of time to organise the shipment. We couldn't track the ship as it changed at least twice, and so MMA were our only source of info - but failed to reply to emails - even after explaining we live 660k from the port of arrival and so need to know this kind of info! We now have 1 day to get our Carnet's to ADAC in Germany.
4) the crating left the bikes totally exposed. They're filthy, reek of fish and are covered in bird shit. Parts of the bikes (like forks etc) are poking out the side of the crating. They are also "crated" (exoskeletonised) in untreated wood which is unacceptable to MAF. Hardly any plastic wrapping and certainly no walls on the "crate".
5) we spent ages trying to get the size of the bikes down, which we did and lower than the quote specs. The pallet was supposed to be cut down to reduce volumetric weight but wasn't, increasing our total costs.

Maybe this is just the way it goes, and Bradley at MMA is a nice bloke, but if I had my time again I'd be asking around.



Gareth and Helen

PS cost was 12,279 Rand for 2x bikes CPT to AKK by ship

Very well, I'll give MMA a try for CT to Frankfurt.

Consider this a bump.
Thanks,
Julian

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Where is Julian?