From Dubai, United Arab Emirates to New Delhi, India - September, 2014

UAE Dubai to Delhi : motorcycle airfreight, 30 September 2014.

We had decided to go with self managed shipping and use Emirates SkyCargo to ship the motorbikes by air to Delhi. This would allow us to apply for Myanmar visas in Delhi while we waited for the motorbikes to be delivered. We had negotiated a price for the transport of two bikes in crates with Emirates. Note that this cost will be based on either weight or volumetric space converted to weight whichever is larger. In our case the volumetric weight was over twice the actual weight, so do not get too excited when they quote a price per kilos and you multiply it by the bikes weight, the volume calculation will come into play and you will be up for, in our experience, at least twice the weight of your bike. Note that we shipped all the panniers, spare tyre and motorcycle clothing which along with the crate which added about 100kg each to the shipping weight.

We arranged with BMW AMC in Dubai to pack the motorbikes in two used BMW motorcycle delivery crates. This cost us 500 dirhams per bike for packing. Noel and his team in the service department did a great job. He even cut hatches for the airport officials to see the motorbike serial numbers without opening the crate completely. Noel also arranged for a vehicle recovery truck to deliver the crates to Emirates SkyCargo which we paid for separately in cash.

Entry permits are required to get to the Emirates SkyCargo main building at Dubai (DXB) airport, note: if your shipment is on a freighter flight it will likely depart from Dubai World Central (DWC) airport. Do check this. We had been told we needed dangerous goods clearance. This can be arranged on the day as Emirates have the contact numbers of various companies at the airport in an adjacent building that do the work. The process took about an hour to complete and you pay cash. I forget the amount but not too expensive.

Depending on the crate size, I believe anything over 2.2 meters in length cannot be accepted at the Emirates SkyCargo main building, you may need as we did, take the motorbikes to the old cargo building which you would have passed on the same side as the Emirates SkyCargo building when you came in. In our case it was not only oversize but too big for the X-ray machine which required some opening up of the crates to check the cargo by the police. The police approval is needed before Emirates can accept the cargo, although by this time the crates have now disappeared from our view. Customs may also want to conduct an inspection, and this is where using an agent, for some cost, may be beneficial. In our case the people carrying out the dangerous good inspection had worked free of charge to help us through some of the steps to obtain the piece of paper needed by Emirates knowing how time consuming they were. A big thank you to them.

With the dangerous goods paperwork and the paper accepting the bikes for shipping after the inspections, we pay Emirates, get our receipts and then undertake the Carnet process to leaving in the Emirates building. With the help of the Emirates business cargo staff this is quickly done. That’s it, not cheap to ship by air, but you know when it will arrive if time is a key factor as it was in our case.

Our crates were BMW motorcycle delivery crates, not acceptable to Emirates for stacking so we paid a volume premium of about 30-40%.