March 04, 2005

Curious George - Courier Air Travel Experiences? I was reading mothninja's invite for the Florence meetup and was seriously considering trying a courier flight to Italy. I've done the requisite google seach, but alot of the information seems a bit confusing and it seems like there are some scammers out there as well. Have any monkeys had any experience doing the courier thing?
posted by squidranch 19 years ago
  • Years back I did a courier flight from London to tokyo - I rang up BA World Cargo at Heathrow to find out waht flights were available. i still had to pay GBP 150 and the return was only good for two weeks but all in all a good deal. I return I had to carry a package of shipping documents and hand around Narita for an extra hour until the packages I was accompanying cleared customs. All for DHL, a big reputable express parcels service so i was confident it was above board, They ask you to dress smartly but I don't think it matters too much. Would your first stop be to call cargo services at your usual international airport?
  • I was a travel agent for students 2 years ago and did a lot of research on cheap travel-- generally courier flight available from the US are to destinations such as Africa or Asia, not Western Europe. You still have to pay for courier flights, and they're not always a great deal, especially with membership fees to even access what may be available. If you want to get to Florence on the cheap, I might recommend getting an inexpensive flight to London (Virgin atlantic & British Midlands tend to be less expensive) and then take a local European airline (like RyanAir or Easyjet) to Italy. Or, if you have a lot of time, container ships sometimes offer inexpensive berth. :) Good luck!
  • That brings up another long standing question that I have had, how does one get a berth on a container ship. Hell, I'll swab the decks, as long as I can get a cheap fair to my destination. Might even be fun to work on a boat for a discount fair. How do you do it?
  • Container ships at least when i looked at them take weeks to get to your destination and also aren't that much cheaper than flying from the sites i saw.
  • Squidranch.....this may be what you're looking for. Or maybe not.
  • hello, squidranch. you, me, private five-week long cargo ship stowawaying, now.
  • Whatever you do, never get involved with a fish factory ship, unless you like cleaning fish on an assembly line with asian immigrants/exiles, smelling like fish guts 24 hours a day, and no real predetermined docking schedule. I hear it`s one of the worst jobs there is. http://www.jobmonkey.com/alaska/html/factory_trawlers.html Just a warning
  • It turns out that freight shipping is actually more expensive than flying, at about USD100 per day for 30+ days, one way! http://www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo/faq.html I looked up courier flights a while ago on flyertalk forums (they sure do say a lot about flying), and their consensus was you need to be very flexible, and in the right place at the right time, and even then it's not as much of a saving nowadays. Good luck!
  • In order to assist you, I will now calculate the number of underpants required for such a journey to four decimal places.
  • 6.2764
  • I did a courier trip with BA a few years back from London to Buenos Aires, and it was fully legit - but they've all but disappeared in Europe. I spoke recently to the fellow who runs the UK office of the Air Couriers Association (not an official body) and he said that he's shutting it down from this summer. Only one airline still does it, and they fly only to Thailand (I think).
  • yeah, when I mentioned a lot of time for container ships, I did mean A LOT of time. Suomynona is right-- they will take a few weeks. as for getting a cheap price, you really have to schmooze the Captain-- and hanging out at docks to talk to sea captains just feels like a Bad Idea somehow... though a good friend of mine went around the world that way for a couple hundred dollars, so I figured I'd throw it out there.
  • Captain: "Arrr. You can be Roger, me cabin boy. Arr!" Squidranch: "Uh ... no." Captain: "Come over here and shiver me timber!" Squidranch: "Uh, hell no". Captain: "Walk me plank, matey." Squidranch: *opens can of California whoopass* ... hmmm. ran out of ideas. carry on.
  • "Hoist my mainmast!"
  • "Swab me poopdeck!"
  • "Scrape me aft barnacles!"
  • Well blow me down. The cockswain's a-spreadin' me futtock shrouds.
  • Wow, this thread morphed from a question about courier flights to homoerotic pirate fiction in six posts. Come on folks, you can do better than that. Next time I post I wanna see it done in four!
  • Genius idea, Squid!! Hope it works out, it would be so awesome to see you!
  • Ha! you ass monkeys are damn funny!
  • Wahddaya mean? We're perfectly serious, here.
  • ....so stop laughing. goddammit. i hate all of you.