BW · hub Port of Spain (POS) · independent

Hand carry on Caribbean Airlines

Caribbean Airlines flies from Port of Spain (POS) in Trinidad and Tobago. We book it when it has the next suitable departure, being independent of every alliance is what lets us combine it with any other carrier on one routing.

Ask for a routing All airlines we fly

One person beats a parcel networkon Caribbean Airlines

The freight chain is not slow because aircraft are slow, it is slow because a consignment waits at every handover. A courier removes the queues, not the kilometres.

OnBoard CourierOne person. One seat. One signature.

CollectedIn the cabin Delivered in on Caribbean Airlines, same day or next morning

Conventional air freightA parcel in a system, every handover is a queue.

Drop-offAcceptance cut-off Build-upFlight Break-downCustoms Delivered, day 3 to 5

0h24h48h72h96h+

When a seat beats a parcel, the full comparison →

Firm quote in 15 minutes

Tell us what has to fly. We answer with a flight and a price.

Five short questions. A dispatcher replies with a named departure, the delivery hour and one fixed price, day and night.

One named courier from collection to signature
Customs cleared in person on arrival
Licensed UAE company, proper VAT invoices

Where Caribbean Airlines fits in an OBC routing

Caribbean Airlines is based in Trinidad and Tobago and operates from Port of Spain (POS) independently of the global alliances. For us a carrier is not a brand preference, it is a departure time. We book Caribbean Airlines when it has the next seat that gets your consignment there, and we combine it freely with any other airline on the same routing because we hold no alliance membership and no exclusive contract.

Cabin baggage reality

As a full-service carrier the cabin baggage allowance is usually workable for a hand-carry, and a premium cabin adds both allowance and rebooking priority. We still confirm the limit for the specific flight and aircraft type before quoting.

Connections

Where a single Caribbean Airlines sector does not reach the destination, the courier connects, and stays with the consignment on every leg, so it is never handed over in transit.

How we book

An ordinary passenger seat on the open market, in the courier's own name, matching the passport exactly. Premium cabins when the consignment or the schedule justifies it.

Customs is separate

The airline moves the aircraft; the courier declares the goods. Entry rules are per country, not per carrier, see our country guides.

Why frequency matters

A carrier with three rotations a day turns a missed departure into a short wait. That is worth more on a deadline than a marginally faster aircraft.

Independence

No alliance, no exclusivity, no volume commitment. The schedule decides, not a supplier agreement.

220countries and territories on the desk

500+airports a courier can be booked into

15 minfrom your message to a firm price

24/7the operations centre is awake

Three departure boards, one desk: Emirates, flydubai and Etihad for on Caribbean Airlines

A hand-carry is only as fast as the next departure. The desk watches three boards at once and books the one that lands first, then holds the one that leaves next.

Emirates

The night bank out of Terminal 3

Between one and four in the morning Emirates pushes back a wave of widebodies from Terminal 3 that reach Europe before the first meeting and Asia by the afternoon. For on Caribbean Airlines that wave is the reason a courier confirmed at eight in the evening is still delivering the next day.

Widebody only, non-stop to 140 plus cities

flydubai

The short sectors, several times a day

From Terminal 2 flydubai runs the one to five hour sectors: the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Africa, the Balkans, the subcontinent. Where a widebody leaves once a day, flydubai often leaves three times, which turns a missed slot into a ninety minute delay rather than a lost day.

Frequency is the fallback

Etihad

Abu Dhabi as the second runway

Ninety minutes down the E11, Etihad leaves from Zayed International with its own bank of departures and, for the United States, immigration cleared before boarding. When the Dubai departure for on Caribbean Airlines is gone, the desk looks at Abu Dhabi before it looks at tomorrow.

US preclearance at AUH

The desk holds no allegiance to a carrier. The booking goes to whichever board puts a courier at on Caribbean Airlines first, at a fare the quote can carry.

on Caribbean Airlines: every hour it waits is an hour it is not moving.

Five questions, one fixed price, a named flight. The desk answers within 15 minutes, day and night, and you decide.

Price it now How it works

Caribbean Airlines in the network the desk measures

Computed on 2026-09-07 from AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics. The desk holds departure schedules for 571 airports, and for the BW code that yields 38 city pairs across 21 of them. It is a measured sample of the published timetable and not the whole of it. Frequencies move with the season, and a quote is priced on the flights running the day you ask.

21airports on this carrier

16countries and territories reached

38scheduled city pairs held

84average daily flights across them

The schedule the desk holds carries the BW code on 38 city pairs, reaching 21 airports in 16 countries and territories. Some of those sectors are flown by Caribbean Airlines and some are sold under its code and flown by a partner, which is how the published timetable states it and how a booking has to be read. 100 per cent of those airports sit on time zones in the Americas, and the carrier appears on no other block in this sample.

The longest sector held for the carrier is Georgetown (GEO) to Toronto (YYZ) at about 4,630 km, and the shortest is Port of Spain (POS) to Scarborough (TAB) at about 83 km. 22 of the pairs are under 1,500 km and 0 run past 5,000 km, a medium haul shape that usually joins a Gulf departure at a single interchange. The airport that appears most often on those pairs is Port of Spain (POS), on 18 of them, which is 47.4 per cent of everything held under this code.

The thickest sector under the code is Port of Spain (POS) to Scarborough (TAB) at about 18 movements a day, which across a full day is roughly one every 1.3 hours. On a sector at that cadence a missed departure costs a wait rather than a night. 6 of the 38 pairs run four or more times a day and 19 run once a day or less. The second figure is the one that matters when a consignment leaves the factory late, because on those sectors the desk will quote a different carrier rather than promise an hour it cannot hold. After Port of Spain (POS) the code leans on Bridgetown (BGI) on 10, Kingston (KIN) on 7, New York (JFK) on 5 pairs respectively, and those are the airports a dispatcher looks at second when the first routing is full.

The sectors that carry the BW code most often

From	To	Country	Flights a day	km	Open it
Port of Spain POS	Scarborough TAB	Trinidad and Tobago	18	83	plan this
Kingston KIN	Miami MIA	the United States	5.6	945	plan this
New York JFK	Kingston KIN	Jamaica	5	2,541	plan this
Georgetown GEO	New York JFK	the United States	4.7	4,098	plan this
Bridgetown BGI	Argyle SVD	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	4	180	plan this
New York JFK	Port of Spain POS	Trinidad and Tobago	4	3,557	plan this
Bridgetown BGI	Castries SLU	Saint Lucia	3.9	193	plan this
Bridgetown BGI	Port of Spain POS	Trinidad and Tobago	3.6	341	plan this
Miami MIA	Port of Spain POS	Trinidad and Tobago	3.6	2,613	plan this
Georgetown GEO	Port of Spain POS	Trinidad and Tobago	3.3	568	plan this
Bridgetown BGI	Miami MIA	the United States	2.6	2,593	plan this
Port of Spain POS	Toronto YYZ	Canada	2.4	4,079	plan this

The 12 sectors the BW code appears on most often, out of 38. Flights a day is the average daily scheduled movement on the busier of the two directions, as held on 2026-09-07. The schedule lists a code against a sector whether the carrier operates it or sells it, so read this as where the code can be booked. Distances are great circle, computed from the published coordinates of the two airports.

How a courier reaches Port of Spain from the Gulf

The schedule the desk holds shows no BW service into a UAE airport, so a courier does not board this carrier in Dubai. The routing is built the other way round: a Gulf carrier takes the first leg to Port of Spain (POS), and Caribbean Airlines carries the second. The desk holds no non-stop link between a UAE gateway and POS either, which means two changes and a routing the dispatcher checks by hand before it quotes.

Published lanes the BW code can carry half of

None of the 346 lanes the site publishes is flown end to end under this code. These 13 are the ones it touches at one end, which is how a routing gets built when no single carrier covers the whole distance: a Gulf carrier takes the first leg and this one finishes it. The lane index holds the rest.

New York to Abu Dhabi, joined at New York (JFK), which this code reaches on 5 of its pairs.
New York to Doha, joined at New York (JFK), which this code reaches on 5 of its pairs.
Dubai to New York, joined at New York (JFK), which this code reaches on 5 of its pairs.
Istanbul to New York, joined at New York (JFK), which this code reaches on 5 of its pairs.
New York to Frankfurt, joined at New York (JFK), which this code reaches on 5 of its pairs.
New York to London, joined at New York (JFK), which this code reaches on 5 of its pairs.
Dubai to Miami, joined at Miami (MIA), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.
Miami to Bogota, joined at Miami (MIA), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.

The countries the BW code opens

Of the 16 countries and territories reached, 13 are reached at a single airport, which for a courier means one airport of entry and a road leg for everything else in that country. The deepest is the United States with 4 airports on this code. The country desk for Trinidad and Tobago sets out the customs practice, the working hours and the road legs behind these airports.

United States (4 airports), Guyana (2 airports), Trinidad and Tobago (2 airports), Canada (1 airports), Antigua and Barbuda (1 airports), Sint Maarten (1 airports), Cuba (1 airports), Barbados (1 airports), Jamaica (1 airports), Grenada (1 airports).

Where to go next on the BW network

Each of the 21 airports above has its own atlas entry with the full destination list, and each of the 38 sectors can be opened in the calculator with the flying time, the distance and the delivery hour worked out. Start with the atlas entry for Port of Spain (POS), the route calculator with Dubai to POS already filled in, the carrier index for the other 236 airlines the desk lists and the airport atlas itself.

Destinations and markets this carrier serves for us

Airline timetables change constantly, so rather than reprint a schedule that will be wrong next month, here is what is useful: the markets where Caribbean Airlines regularly appears in our routings, and the pages that describe those lanes in detail. If you need a specific city on Caribbean Airlines, ask and we will check the live schedule.

Markets in Americas:

United States Canada Mexico Brazil Argentina Chile Colombia Peru Panama All countries →

On board courier vs air cargo

Whether the seat is on Caribbean Airlines or any other carrier, this is what a courier changes compared with the hold of the same aircraft.

✓ On board courier

A person in a seat

Leaves on the next available flight, often within hours of your call, 24/7.
One named courier holds the consignment from collection to signature.
Travels in the aircraft cabin wherever the airline, cargo classification and security rules permit it; the transport configuration is confirmed before booking.
No warehouse, no consolidation window, no overnight sort.
Customs cleared in person, questions answered at the counter, immediately.
Same-day delivery is realistic on most sectors out of the UAE.
Built for high-value, fragile, temperature-critical goods and originals.
Proof of delivery with signature, ID check and a photograph within minutes.
A human being you can call at any point of the journey.

✕ Air cargo & express freight

A parcel in a system

Waits for the next consolidation and space allocation, not for you.
Passes through many hands: hub, build-up, ramp, break-down, delivery agent.
Rides in the hold, frequently sitting in a warehouse overnight.
Each handover is a queue, and each queue is where hours disappear.
Cleared in a batch by a broker; one query can idle the shipment for a day.
Next day at best on most lanes, two to three days if it is held.
Chain of custody is a scan history, not a person with the box.
Signed for by whoever happens to be at the door.
Right answer for heavy, bulky or non-urgent freight, and we will say so.

To be straight about it: air cargo is not a bad service, it is a different one. It moves weight cheaply and it does that extremely well. A hand-carry buys back hours, and it is worth paying for exactly when an hour of delay costs more than a seat on a plane, which is the case far more often than most shippers assume, and far less often than most courier companies claim.

The full comparison, with costs →

Questions about flying Caribbean Airlines

What clients and couriers ask when they see this carrier on an assignment.

01Are you an agent or partner of Caribbean Airlines?

No. OnBoard Courier is an independent courier management company. We buy ordinary passenger seats on the open market and hold no agency, contract or partnership with any airline. Airline names and marks belong to their owners and are used here only to describe the routes these assignments travel on.

02Will my consignment definitely fly Caribbean Airlines?

Only if that is genuinely the fastest option for your deadline. We book whichever carrier departs next with a seat and a cabin allowance that fits.

03How much can a courier carry on Caribbean Airlines?

As a full-service carrier the cabin baggage allowance is usually workable for a hand-carry, and a premium cabin adds both allowance and rebooking priority. We confirm the exact allowance for the specific flight before quoting.

04Can I fly as a courier on Caribbean Airlines?

If you are in our network, yes, couriers fly whichever airline the assignment requires. We book and pay the ticket and pay a fee per completed assignment.

Need a routing that uses Caribbean Airlines?

Send the two ends and the deadline. We will check the live schedule across every carrier and come back with the fastest realistic option.

Request a quote → Browse countries

Why a courier on Caribbean Airlines rather than a cargo booking

It is worth being precise about what an on board courier is, because the phrase gets used for three different products. It is not a faster parcel service, it is not a premium express label, and it is not a charter. It is a person who buys a seat on a scheduled flight and carries your consignment in the cabin, in their own custody, from the moment they collect it to the moment somebody signs for it.

The other thing being bought is answerability. When a customs officer has a question about a shipment, the shipment cannot answer, so it waits for someone who can. When the question is asked of a courier standing at the counter with the invoice in their hand, it is answered immediately. That is not a marketing claim; it is the entire operational advantage compressed into one sentence.

What clients are actually buying is the removal of every handover. In a normal air freight movement a consignment changes hands seven or eight times: shipper, forwarder, handling agent, ramp, aircraft, ramp, break-bulk, broker, delivery agent. Each handover is a queue and each queue is where hours disappear. A courier reduces that number to one, collection, and one more, delivery.

On the Port of Spain lane this matters more than average, because the schedule and the customs position both reward preparation and punish improvisation. The half hour spent on the description of the goods before departure is the half day you do not spend at the border afterwards.

How an assignment routed over Port of Spain runs

From the first message to the delivery signature, a Port of Spain assignment passes through six stages. None of them are automated away, and none of them involve your consignment sitting in a warehouse overnight.

Minute 0 to 15

You tell us what it is

The first conversation is short and specific: contents, declared value, collection address, delivery address in Port of Spain, and the real deadline rather than the comfortable one. If there are batteries, powders, liquids, biological material or anything regulated in the box, that is the moment to say so, not at the check-in desk.

Minute 15 to 45

We screen it and price it

Before a price exists we screen the parties, the commodity and the route against sanctions and export-control lists, and we check whether Port of Spain requires a permit or a licensed consignee for that category. This is also where we occasionally say no, and a provider who never says no has simply moved the risk onto you.

Hour 1 to 3

A named courier is assigned and booked

We name the courier and the flight before you pay, not after. That means a real person with a passport valid well beyond the trip, the visas the Port of Spain routing needs, and a record of assignments they have already closed cleanly.

Hour 2 to 4

Collection, sealing and documentation

The courier collects in person, checks the goods against the description, seals the packaging with a numbered tamper-evident seal and photographs it. The commercial invoice, packing list and any permit travel with the courier, and a copy reaches our operations desk and the consignee in Port of Spain at the same moment.

In flight

The consignment stays in the cabin

Once airborne, the job is simply not to let go. The consignment stays in the cabin for every sector; where the routing to Port of Spain connects, the courier remains airside with it rather than clearing and re-entering.

On arrival

Customs, then a signature

The courier declares the goods through the red channel at Port of Spain (POS), answers questions in person and, where the category or the value warrants it, meets a customs broker we have already briefed. The handover is against signature, printed name and an identification reference, timestamped and with photographs where you have asked for them.

The paperwork that decides how fast Port of Spain goes

Nothing delays a hand-carry as reliably as a document that says something different from the box. This is what we prepare with you before the courier leaves, and why each piece matters at Port of Spain (POS).

Temperature and dangerous goods

Dry ice quantities, lithium battery watt-hours, biological substance classification and packing group all have hard limits for a passenger cabin. Some consignments to Trinidad and Tobago can travel exactly as they are; some need repacking; some cannot fly with a passenger at all, and we say so rather than finding out at security.

Certificates and permits

Certificates of origin, health and phytosanitary certificates, dangerous goods declarations, export licences for dual-use items, import permits for regulated categories. We identify which of these Trinidad and Tobago wants for your specific commodity at the quoting stage, because discovering it at Port of Spain (POS) is far too late.

Tariff classification

The HS code decides the duty, the permits and sometimes whether the goods may enter Trinidad and Tobago at all. We would rather agree the classification with you before departure than watch an officer choose one for us, because the officer's choice is the one that stands.

Named consignee with authority

Someone in Port of Spain must be entitled to receive the goods and, where clearance requires it, able to act as importer of record. A delivery address without an authorised person behind it is where otherwise perfect assignments stall.

Legalisation and attestation

Documents that must be legalised, apostilled or attested to be valid in Trinidad and Tobago are checked before the courier collects them. A perfectly delivered document that lacks the right stamp has not solved anybody's problem.

Proforma invoice for non-sales

Repairs, exhibition goods, replacements and samples still need a document with a realistic value on it. The value is what the goods are worth, not what you would like the duty to be, an understated value is a customs offence in Trinidad and Tobago rather than a negotiating position.

What a Port of Spain courier actually costs, and why

We do not publish a price list, because a fixed table would be a lie: the same box on the same route costs differently at four hours' notice than at two days'. What we can do is be exact about which levers move the number, so nothing in the quote is a surprise.

Whether the courier returns immediately

A same-day turnaround, an overnight with a hotel, or a courier who continues to a third country all cost differently. On a Port of Spain routing the flight schedule usually decides this rather than anybody's preference.

Visas and positioning

If the routing to Trinidad and Tobago needs a visthe courier does not hold, either we assign a courier who does or we position one, and a global network exists precisely so that the answer is usually the first option rather than the second.

Weekends, nights and public holidays

We operate around the clock, and a consignment collected at 02:00 on a Friday is a normal assignment rather than a special case. It is priced the same way as any other; what changes is which flights exist, not what we charge for our part.

What is always included

Ticket, courier fee, airport transfers, the hotel where an overnight is unavoidable, the documentation work and our operations desk being awake for the whole journey. What is not included is duty and tax in Trinidad and Tobago, and anything you ask for after departure that changes the routing.

Distance and sector count

A direct flight to Port of Spain is one ticket and one risk. A two-sector routing is cheaper on paper and more expensive in practice, because every connection is a chance to lose the consignment's schedule. We quote the routing we would actually fly, not the cheapest one that technically arrives.

How much notice you give us

A seat bought four hours before departure costs what a seat bought four hours before departure costs. Nothing about that is a courier margin, it is simply the airline's pricing curve, and it is the single largest variable in a Port of Spain quote.

Every quote we send is fixed before departure and contains the flight, the courier's fee, transfers and, where an overnight cannot be avoided, the hotel. The things that can change it afterwards are the things you control: a change of destination, a change of goods, or a delay at your end that costs the booked flight. Duty and tax in Trinidad and Tobago sit with the consignee unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.

Dubai skyline at dusk — The word “impossible” is not in the leaders’ dictionaries.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

What can go wrong on a Port of Spain assignment, and what we do about it

Every operator has these problems. The difference is whether the answer was decided in advance or invented at the counter. This is our answer to each of them, written down before you need it.

The connection is missed

This is why we build routings above the minimum connection time rather than at it. Where a connection is genuinely tight, the courier holds the consignment airside and takes the next available service rather than clearing into a country they were only passing through.

The flight is cancelled

Not a crisis, a routine. Before the courier leaves for the airport we already know the next two departures that could carry the consignment to Port of Spain, on any carrier, from any of the seven UAE airports. Rebooking is a phone call, not a rescue operation.

Something needs to continue past Port of Spain

A second sector, a border crossing or a domestic flight beyond Port of Spain (POS) is planned as part of the assignment, not handed to a third party on arrival. The chain of custody either holds to the signature or it is not a chain of custody.

The consignment is larger than described

Measured at collection, not at the gate. If it will not fit a locker we buy a seat for it there and then and tell you the revised number before the courier moves, rather than improvising at check-in.

Weather or airspace closes the route

Force majeure does not disappear because a shipment is urgent. What we do is re-plan around it, a different hub, a different carrier, occasionally a different UAE airport, and tell you what the new arrival time is rather than letting you discover it.

The courier is refused boarding

Almost always a document problem: a passport too close to expiry, a missing transit visa, a name on the ticket that does not match the passport. Every one of those is checked at assignment, and it is checked again before the courier leaves for the airport.

How jobs like this actually run

Illustrative cases, patterns from daily OBC work, details generalised for client confidentiality.

LegalDXB → SIN

Signed originals for a company closing that could not wait for a courier network.

Collected DIFC17:40

Non-stop overnight20:50

At the notary09:15 +1

✓ Closing held on schedule.

AutomotiveSTR → DXB

A prototype part for a validation rig, crated to fit the cabin allowance.

Plant pickup09:40

Via FRA13:30

Test bench23:55

✓ Rig time kept, no week lost to freight.

AOGDXB → FRA

A narrow-body grounded for a hydraulic sensor at a Frankfurt MRO line.

Collected14:10

Wheels up18:15

At the MRO line23:40

✓ Aircraft released for the morning wave.

Times are typical for these lanes; every job gets its own named flight and timeline before you confirm.

How it moves

A seat of its own, never out of sight

The case flies belted in the cabin next to the courier, never checked in.

Join the OBC network, become an on board courier

Every route on this site runs because somebody was willing to get on the plane with it. We are recruiting vetted couriers worldwide: we book and pay the flight, cover transfers and a hotel where an overnight is needed, and pay a fee for every completed assignment, stated in the offer before you accept it. You decide when you are available.

Flights paid
Fee per assignment
Assignments worldwide
You choose your dates
Training in our Academy

Join the OBC network now → See the open position What does an OBC earn?

Aircraft wing above the clouds — From this tarmac a courier can reach six continents before tomorrow night.
The geography that built Dubai

Get a quote for this route

Tell us what has to move and where it has to be. You get a fixed price and a departure time back, usually within 15 minutes, day or night.

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Answered by a person, 24/7. No commitment. One form, one reply.

Origin airport

Destination airport

Shipment type

Ready date & time

Who is booking

Company

What does the company do?

Your name

Phone

Email address

What is in the consignment?

Request received. We reply by email from bookings [at] onboardcourier [dot] ae, usually within 15 minutes.

Confidential · no commitment · 24/7 availability

I need to send something

Book hand-carry delivery from the UAE to anywhere in the world, and follow it in real time. Same-day departure available.

Book a shipment → Client login

I want to fly as a courier

We pay the ticket and a fee per completed assignment. You choose when you are available.

Apply as an OBC → See the open position

Where to go from here

Hand carry on Caribbean Airlines is one chapter of a larger network. OnBoard Courier moves time-critical consignments with vetted on-board couriers departing 24/7 from all seven UAE airports to 584 destinations across 219 countries. Choose the service that fits, classic hand-carry, AOG for grounded aircraft, medical and pharma, next flight out or high-value goods, then check entry requirements and customs by country and how an assignment actually runs, minute by minute.

Prefer to compare first? Read when a seat beats a parcel network, browse the industries we move for or scan the airlines the couriers the desk places fly with. If you travel often yourself, flying as an OnBoard Courier pays per completed assignment. For anything urgent, the fastest route is the quote form above, answered by a person, day or night.