Compliance & accuracy

Carriers we will not book, and ones that no longer fly

Q: Can you still reach the countries those airlines serve?

Sometimes, through other carriers and other routings — and sometimes not at all. We assess each request against the restrictions in force and give a straight answer.

Q: Can you collect outside the UAE?

Yes. Third-country assignments — collect in one country, deliver in another — are a normal part of the work, and they are routed through the fastest connection rather than automatically through Dubai. Where a courier already in the region can take it, that is what happens.

Two lists most courier companies leave off their websites. The first is the carriers we decline on compliance grounds. The second is the airline names people still search for that have merged or ceased operating, with what actually flies those routes now.

One person beats a parcel network

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, same day / 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

Airlines we do not book

Sanctions and export controls are screened before a routing is offered, not after. Where a carrier is designated, we do not book it, we do not connect through it, and we do not accept a consignment that would require it.

Airline	IATA	Country	Why
Mahan Air	W5	Iran	Designated under US sanctions. We do not book it, we do not route through it, and we do not accept consignments that would involve it.
Iran Air	IR	Iran	Subject to sanctions and export-control restrictions. Not booked.
Iran Aseman Airlines	EP	Iran	Sanctioned. Not booked.
Syrian Air	RB	Syria	Sanctioned. Not booked.
Aeroflot	SU	Russia	Subject to sanctions and airspace restrictions across much of Europe and North America. Not booked; Russian routings are screened individually and usually declined.
Rossiya Airlines	FV	Russia	Sanctioned. Not booked.
S7 Airlines	S7	Russia	Sanctioned. Not booked.
Belavia	B2	Belarus	Sanctioned. Not booked.
Air Koryo	JS	North Korea	Sanctioned. Not booked under any circumstances.
Ariana Afghan Airlines	FG	Afghanistan	Subject to restrictions and operational uncertainty. Not booked.

Sanctions regimes change. This list reflects our standing position and is reviewed per assignment against the restrictions in force at the time of booking, for us, for the operating carrier and for every country on the routing.

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 your consignment

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 your consignment 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 your consignment 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 your consignment first, at a fare the quote can carry.

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

Airlines that no longer operate

People still search for these names, here is the honest answer and what covers the route today.

Airline	IATA	Country	Status today
Dragonair / Cathay Dragon	KA	Hong Kong SAR	Merged into Cathay Pacific and ceased operating as a separate airline in 2020. Its former regional routes are now flown by Cathay Pacific and HK Express, which we book normally.
Vistara	UK	India	Merged into Air India. Former Vistara routes are operated by Air India, which we book normally.
Air Berlin	AB	Germany	Ceased operations in 2017; the German market is served by Lufthansa, Condor, Eurowings and Discover.
Alitalia	AZ	Italy	Succeeded by ITA Airways, which carries the same IATA code.
Jet Airways	9W	India	No longer operating. Indian routes are covered by Air India, IndiGo, Air India Express, Akasa and SpiceJet.
Thomas Cook Airlines	MT	United Kingdom	Ceased operations in 2019.
Air Namibia	SW	Namibia	Ceased operations in 2021; Windhoek is reached via Johannesburg or Doha.

The airlines we do fly →

On board courier vs air cargo

Compliance is not a footnote in this business, it is the difference between a consignment that arrives and one that is seized.

✓ 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

What clients ask about compliance and carrier availability.

01Why do you publish a list of airlines you will not book?

Because clients and couriers ask, and because a placement business that is vague about sanctions is one you should not use. If a routing would involve a sanctioned carrier, we say so immediately rather than discovering it at the airport.

02Can you still reach the countries those airlines serve?

Sometimes, through other carriers and other routings, and sometimes not at all. We assess each request against the restrictions in force and give a straight answer.

03Does Dragonair still exist?

No. Dragonair, later Cathay Dragon, was merged into Cathay Pacific and stopped operating as a separate airline in 2020. Its former regional routes are now flown by Cathay Pacific and HK Express, both of which we book normally.

04What happened to Vistara?

It merged into Air India. Former Vistara routes are operated by Air India, which we book normally.

Unsure whether your routing is possible?

Send the two ends and the commodity. You get a straight answer, including a clear no if that is the correct one.

Request a quote → Entry & customs guides

On board courier, wherever it has to go

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.

It is also worth saying what the service does not fix. It does not make a permit appear, it does not make a sanctioned party acceptable, and it does not make an undeclared battery legal. Where those are the problem, a courier only makes the problem arrive faster, which is why the screening happens before the quote.

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.

Applied to the destination, the practical upshot is simple: tell us the contents, the value, the deadline and the receiving party, and we will tell you within the hour whether a courier is the right answer, what it costs, and which flight it goes on. Where the honest answer is freight, you will get that instead.

How an assignment actually runs

From the first message to the delivery signature, an 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

We need four things before we can say anything useful: what is inside, what it is worth, where exactly it has to be, and by when. Not a category, the actual item. “Electronic component” and “lithium battery pack” are the same box to you and two entirely different answers for a flight to the destination.

Minute 15 to 45

We screen it and price it

We check three things at once: whether we may lawfully carry it, whether the destination country will let it in without a permit we do not have, and whether it physically fits an aircraft cabin. Only then do you get a fixed price, and the price includes the ticket, the courier fee, transfers and a hotel where an overnight is unavoidable.

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 the destination 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 the destination at the same moment.

In flight

The consignment stays in the cabin

The flight is the boring part, and that is the point. No hold, no handling agent, no transfer between systems, one person, one box, one continuous chain of custody all the way to the arrival airport.

On arrival

Customs, then a signature

At the arrival airport the goods are declared properly, a commercial consignment goes through the red channel, and a courier who chooses the green channel to save twenty minutes has committed an offence rather than a shortcut. Delivery follows immediately, against a signed and timestamped receipt.

The paperwork that decides how fast it clears

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 the arrival airport.

Legalisation and attestation

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

Named consignee with authority

Someone in the destination 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.

Tariff classification

The HS code decides the duty, the permits and sometimes whether the goods may enter the destination country 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.

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 the destination country wants for your specific commodity at the quoting stage, because discovering it at the arrival airport is far too late.

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 the destination country 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.

Commercial invoice

The document customs actually reads. It needs a plain description of the goods, the real value, the currency, the terms of sale and the full names and addresses of both parties. “Samples, no commercial value” is not a customs value and it is the fastest way to turn a twenty-minute clearance at the arrival airport into an afternoon.

Dubai skyline at dusk — Wealth is not money. Wealth lies in men. This is where true power lies.
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan

What can go wrong on an 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 consignee is unreachable

We confirm the receiving party and a working phone number before the courier departs, and we agree a fallback in the destination, a second authorised person, or a secure hold, so that a delivery does not fail because someone went into a meeting.

Something needs to continue past the destination

A second sector, a border crossing or a domestic flight beyond the arrival airport 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 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 the destination, on any carrier, from any of the seven UAE airports. Rebooking is a phone call, not a rescue operation.

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.

Customs asks a question

A person can answer it. That single fact is most of the difference between a hand-carry and a cargo booking: a query at the arrival airport that would idle a shipment for a day gets resolved at the counter in minutes because the person who knows what is in the box is standing there.

The declared value is challenged

It happens, and it is survivable when the invoice is realistic and consistent with the goods. It is not survivable when someone wrote a convenient number. We check this before departure precisely because there is no way to fix it afterwards.

How jobs like this actually run

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

FashionMXP → DXB

Runway samples finished in Milan on Thursday, the show was Saturday.

Atelier pickup18:00

Morning departure09:35 +1

Backstage19:20 +1

✓ Every look on the rail before the rehearsal.

BankingZRH → DXB

Instruments that required a named carrier and a witnessed handover.

Vault release10:05

Non-stop13:40

Counter-signed22:10

✓ Both signatures on one timeline.

PharmaAUH → LHR

Validation samples at 2 to 8 °C for a London reference lab, data-logger sealed.

Cool-chain packed16:30

In the cabin21:05

Lab signature08:20 +1

✓ Chain of custody and temperature log unbroken.

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

How it moves

The next flight out, not the next batch

Your consignment is booked on a named flight, boarding within hours.

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.

Request a quote

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

Carriers we will not book, and ones that no longer fly 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.