If the commodity is unusual, describe it rather than categorising it. A lithium cell, a temperature controlled biological sample and a machined casting are three different conversations with three different sets of rules, and the category name hides which one you are in.
Air freight · enquiry
Air freight enquiry
Separate from the hand carry quote form, tagged separately when it arrives, and passed to a vetted forwarding partner who can quote it.
- Read by
- The Dubai desk
- Quoted by
- A forwarding partner
- Automatic pricing
- None
- Hand carry ceiling
- 32 kg
What this desk is. OnBoard Courier places on board couriers: a vetted person carries the consignment in the cabin on a scheduled passenger flight and hands it over against a signature. The desk does not operate air freight, does not hold an airline contract and is not a forwarder. Air freight enquiries sent through this site are passed to a vetted forwarding partner, and the pages here are written so that you can tell which of the two you actually need.
Before you fill this in
Four facts get an air freight enquiry quoted quickly, and you almost certainly have all four: where the consignment is, where it has to be, what it is, and roughly what it weighs and measures. Dimensions matter as much as weight, because air freight is priced on the greater of gross and volumetric weight, which the chargeable weight page works through.
If a line is stopped or an aircraft is on the ground, say so in the first line. It changes what gets looked at first, and it is also the case where a hand carry may be the better answer, which the desk will tell you rather than quietly passing the enquiry on.
What happens next. The enquiry is stored and tagged as air freight, so it is never worked as a courier booking by mistake, and it is passed to a vetted forwarding partner who quotes and contracts the carriage. The desk does not price air freight itself and will not send you a number it cannot stand behind.
Air freight enquiry
Separate from the hand carry quote form, and tagged separately when it arrives. The desk reads it and passes it to a vetted forwarding partner who quotes and contracts the carriage.
Questions people actually ask
01Who answers this?
The OnBoard Courier desk reads it, and passes it to a vetted forwarding partner who prices and contracts the carriage. The desk does not quote air freight itself. You will be contacted by the party who can actually honour a price.
02Why is it separate from the quote form?
Because they are different products with different partners and different economics, and mixing them produces a hand carry quote for an air freight enquiry, which wastes your time and ours. The enquiry is tagged at the moment it is sent so it can be routed and counted apart.
03Will I be sent an automatic price?
No. The site raises automatic prices for hand carry enquiries where it holds every input it needs. Air freight enquiries are deliberately excluded from that, because the desk does not hold air cargo rates and an automatic number would be invented.
04What happens to my data?
It is stored so the enquiry can be worked, and it is passed to the forwarding partner so that it can be quoted, which is exactly what the consent line on the form says. The privacy policy is the full account.
05What if the answer is a hand carry after all?
Then the desk will say so and quote it, usually within about fifteen minutes, because a hand carry is the thing it actually operates. Under 32 kg and inside 48 hours, that is a real possibility and worth mentioning in the enquiry.
Where this came from
- Scheduled network, airlines and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics as held by this site, retrieved 2026-09-07. It is a snapshot rather than a live timetable, it includes some all cargo operators but is not a complete freighter schedule, and a carrier that is not listed may still fly the pair.
- Distances: Great circle, computed from published airport coordinates. They are shorter than a flown track and are not routing distances.
- Block times: Modelled, not measured: great circle distance times a track factor of 1.06, divided by a cruise speed of 720, 830 or 880 km/h by distance band, plus thirty minutes of taxi across the two ends. This is the same model the route calculator on this site uses. A real timetable will differ.
- Industrial sites: Public company information, checked 2026-09-07. Nothing here states or implies that any company named is a customer of OnBoard Courier or of any operator.
- Air cargo rules and definitions: The ICAO Technical Instructions and the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations for dangerous goods, IATA Resolution 600a for the air waybill, the Montreal Convention 1999 for carrier liability, and Incoterms 2020. Where this site holds no figure of its own it says so rather than inventing one.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a hand carry placement desk in Dubai. It does not fly air freight. These pages exist because the desk is asked to rescue air freight that has run out of time often enough to have learned where the line between the two sits, and because a comparison written by somebody who sells only one of the two options is not a comparison. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
Air freight, the comparison · Corridors · The Atlas · Route calculator