Express air freight
Air freight from any Chinese factory to your door, in one contract
Forty-eight hours is the flight. The part that usually goes wrong is everything around it: the factory that has not finished packing, the export paperwork nobody prepared, the customs post that wants a document you were never told about. We take all of that.
Who this is for
When air freight is the right answer
Air is several times the price of sea. These are the cases where it still comes out cheaper than the alternative.
Samples before a big order
You need the sample in hand this week to approve it, not in six weeks. The cost of the flight is nothing next to the cost of approving a specification from photographs.
You are running out of stock
The season is on, the shelf is emptying, and the container that would solve it is still four weeks away. Air freight buys back the time.
Small, valuable or fast-moving goods
Electronics, components, cosmetics, anything where the freight is a small share of the value. Sea freight saves you money you were not really spending.
A short top-up on an existing order
The container is already loaded and you need another two hundred units. Air is the only way to make them arrive together.
Scope
What we do, and what arrives at your door
What we do
- Collect the cargo at the supplier's premises rather than waiting for them to send it themselves
- Check quantity and packing at pickup, and repack for air where the factory's packaging will not survive it
- Calculate chargeable weight honestly — the greater of actual and volumetric — before you commit
- Prepare the export documents in China: invoice, packing list, declaration
- Book the flight and hand over to the airline, including for goods that need special handling
- Clear customs at destination on the white route, with the real value in the declaration
- Deliver to the door and hand over the full document set
What you get
- One price covering the whole route, not four invoices from four companies
- A total transit estimate stated before dispatch, not after
- Photographs of the cargo at pickup, before it leaves the supplier
- Air waybill and tracking
- A complete import document set your accountant can work with
- One person answering for the shipment from the factory gate to your door
How it works
How a shipment goes
Written out in order, because the two places air shipments actually lose time are at the start and at the end — not in the air.
Details and quote
Weight, dimensions, what the goods are, where from and where to. We come back with a price and a realistic total time, in writing.
Pickup
We collect at the supplier's premises, check the quantity against the packing list and photograph what we received.
Export papers
Invoice, packing list and declaration prepared in China. Goods with batteries or liquids are declared as what they are — the alternative is a shipment stuck at the airport.
Flight
Handover to the airline and departure. You get the air waybill and can follow it.
Customs and delivery
Clearance at destination on the white route, then a courier to your door with the document set.
Cost
How air freight is priced
There is no single rate per kilo, and anyone quoting one before knowing the cargo is guessing. Here is what the number is built from.
What the price depends on
- Chargeable weight — the greater of actual weight and volumetric weight, so a light bulky box costs more than the scales suggest
- The route and the season: rates before Chinese New Year and before the Western holiday peak are not the rates in March
- What the goods are — batteries, liquids, powders and cosmetics need special handling and cost more
- Whether customs clearance at destination is on us or on you
- Whether we collect from the supplier or the cargo arrives at our warehouse
An honest note on the 48 hours: that is the carriage leg. The total also depends on when the factory actually has the goods ready and on customs in your country — and we name that figure before we send anything, not after.
Questions
What people ask about air freight
What is volumetric weight and why am I charged for it?
An aircraft runs out of space long before it runs out of weight allowance. So carriers charge for whichever is greater: what the shipment actually weighs, or what its volume would weigh at a standard density.
In practice: multiply length by width by height in centimetres and divide by 6000. If that number is bigger than the scale weight, that is what you pay for. Our calculator does it for you.
Can you ship goods with batteries?
Usually yes, and it depends on the type and how they are packed. Devices with a battery inside are simpler than loose battery packs.
What we will not do is declare them as something else. That is how a shipment gets seized and a shipper gets blacklisted, and it is not a risk worth taking to save a few days.
Does the supplier hand the goods over, or do you collect?
We collect. Waiting for a factory to send something themselves is where most of the lost days come from — the courier is booked for tomorrow, then the day after, and nobody tells you.
Our driver goes to their gate, checks the quantity against the packing list and photographs what was loaded.
What happens if customs stops the shipment?
We deal with it, and you hear about it from us before you hear about it from anyone else. Most holds are a missing or inconsistent document, which is exactly why we prepare the set ourselves rather than passing on whatever the factory produced.
If the hold is about certification for your market, that is a sign the goods needed preparation before they shipped — see certification and labelling.
Is it really 48 hours?
The flight leg is. The total is the flight plus how long the factory takes to have the goods genuinely ready, plus customs in your country.
We give you the total estimate before dispatch. If we think it will be five days, we say five days.
Can I combine air and sea on the same order?
Yes, and it is often the sensible answer: the urgent part of the batch flies, the rest goes by sea or rail in our own container. One contract, one person answering for both.
Next steps
Often bought together
Air freight rarely travels alone. These are the three that come with it most often.
Request
Tell us the task — we will come back with questions and a plan
Four short steps. After you send it, you will see a confirmation with your name on it, and a person from the Guangzhou office picks it up during Chinese working hours.
If you would rather write than fill in a form, the messenger buttons in the chat window reach the same team.