Interesting information Lucky Jack thanks for the heads up

Hi guys, just added some info on another thread, here: http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ht-xt600-41061

For what it's worth, air freight of a (318kg laden Africa Twin, stripped as per photo added to thread above) from Cape Town International to London Heathrow cost me just shy of R8000 last March. That was about £600 at the time I think, so approx $900-1000 US. Freight forwarders were MMA, contact details in the shipping database on here.

Recommended, but for pete's sake make sure they fill in the hazardous goods declaration properly, or the airline WILL refuse the consignment until they get it right. Don't ask me how I know. Or how I got home from heathrow while waiting for my bike to turn up a couple of days later... :eek3:

You'll get some crazy quotes from some forwarders, we got some absolute howlers from various UK-based airfreight companies until we settled on doing as much as possible ourselves - afterall, we'd handled all the customs ourselves all across Africa, why pay some agent in RSA to do it there??

thanks mate,

Just took a look at your site very cool.

To follow up on this ...

For air shipment from Cape Town to New York City, I had estimates of $2100 USD from MMA and another company, and one for $4100 USD!

The best quote of four quotes I secured was $1800 USD with a small outfit called United Freight Logistics and I went with that. Universal Freight Logistics cargo shipper in cape town. Service was excellent. They even visited my hotel to measure the bike and gave me rides around Cape Town. The managing director is a fellow named Peter Schultz.

Peter may seem a bit disorganized, but he's been in the business a long time and stuck by his estimate of $1800. Maybe I could have found a cheaper quote but overall I was satisfied, and Peter's man Kirk was particularly helpful and fun to hang around with throughout the process.

My Suzuki DR650 was crated in a BMW box. I removed the front wheel and rear top box and mirrors, nothing else. No significant problems either in Cape Town or NYC.

Mark