XQ · hub Antalya (AYT) · independent

Hand carry on SunExpress

SunExpress flies from Antalya (AYT) in Türkiye. 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 SunExpress

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 SunExpress, 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 SunExpress fits in an OBC routing

SunExpress is based in Türkiye and operates from Antalya (AYT) independently of the global alliances. For us a carrier is not a brand preference, it is a departure time. We book SunExpress 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 SunExpress 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 SunExpress

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 SunExpress 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 SunExpress 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 SunExpress first, at a fare the quote can carry.

on SunExpress: 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

SunExpress 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 XQ code that yields 240 city pairs across 102 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.

102airports on this carrier

35countries and territories reached

240scheduled city pairs held

447average daily flights across them

The schedule the desk holds carries the XQ code on 240 city pairs, reaching 102 airports in 35 countries and territories. Some of those sectors are flown by SunExpress 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. 91.2 per cent of those airports sit on European time zones, and the next largest block is on Asian time zones.

The longest sector held for the carrier is Izmir (ADB) to Almaty (ALA) at about 4,172 km, and the shortest is Antalya (AYT) to Nicosia (ECN) at about 310 km. 53 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 Antalya (AYT), on 73 of them, which is 30.4 per cent of everything held under this code.

The thickest sector under the code is Antalya (AYT) to Cologne (CGN) at about 15.7 movements a day, which across a full day is roughly one every 1.5 hours. On a sector at that cadence a missed departure costs a wait rather than a night. 135 of the 240 pairs run once a day or less and only 34 run four times or more. A network shaped like that is quoted on the outbound flight by name, because on most of it the next aircraft is tomorrow. After Antalya (AYT) the code leans on Izmir (ADB) on 63, Düsseldorf (DUS) on 21, Kayseri (ASR) on 16 pairs respectively, and those are the airports a dispatcher looks at second when the first routing is full.

The sectors that carry the XQ code most often

From	To	Country	Flights a day	km	Open it
Antalya AYT	Cologne CGN	Germany	15.7	2,432	the pair page
Antalya AYT	Düsseldorf DUS	Germany	14.6	2,479	the pair page
Antalya AYT	Vienna VIE	Austria	13.7	1,702	plan this
Antalya AYT	Chişinău RMO	Moldova	11.9	1,126	plan this
Antalya AYT	Nuremberg NUE	Germany	9.6	2,115	plan this
Antalya AYT	Hanover HAJ	Germany	9.4	2,387	the pair page
Antalya AYT	Stuttgart STR	Germany	9.1	2,182	the pair page
Antalya AYT	Berlin BER	Germany	8.9	2,185	the pair page
Antalya AYT	Prague PRG	Czechia	8.7	1,975	the pair page
Antalya AYT	Frankfurt-am-Main FRA	Germany	8.6	2,299	plan this
Antalya AYT	Manchester MAN	the United Kingdom	8.6	3,130	plan this
Antalya AYT	Bucharest OTP	Romania	8.6	940	plan this
Antalya AYT	Munich MUC	Germany	8.4	2,001	plan this
Dalaman DLM	London LGW	the United Kingdom	8.3	2,793	plan this
Izmir ADB	Nicosia ECN	Cyprus	7.3	663	plan this
Izmir ADB	Frankfurt-am-Main FRA	Germany	6.7	1,967	plan this

The 16 sectors the XQ code appears on most often, out of 240. 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.

Where XQ meets the UAE gateways

SunExpress is one of the carriers a courier can board without leaving the Emirates. The desk holds 2 pairs under this code touching Dubai (DXB), so a booking can start at a UAE counter and stay on one ticket to the delivery city.

UAE airport	To	Country	Flights a day	km	Open it
Dubai DXB	Antalya AYT	Türkiye	1.3	2,662	plan this
Dubai DXB	Izmir ADB	Türkiye	0.4	3,017	plan this

Night restrictions on the airports the XQ code uses

A hand carry is bought for the hours it saves, and an airport that will not take a movement after a certain hour can spend those hours back. 17 of the 102 airports this code is booked through carry a restriction the desk holds in writing, checked 2026-09-07. Exemptions and seasonal variations exist, and the desk confirms the position with the airport or the carrier before it books.

Düsseldorf (DUS), night restrictions. Scheduled movements are restricted between 22:00 and 06:00 local, with a limited number of late landings allowed.
Stuttgart (STR), night restrictions. No scheduled movements between 23:30 and 06:00 local.
Frankfurt-am-Main (FRA), night restrictions. No scheduled take offs or landings between 23:00 and 05:00 local. A late evening departure that slips past 23:00 does not go until morning.
Munich (MUC), night restrictions. Scheduled movements are limited between 22:00 and 06:00 local, with a core quiet period from midnight to 05:00.
Berlin (BER), night restrictions. Core quiet period from midnight to 05:00 local, with restricted movements from 22:00 and until 06:00.
Brussels (BRU), night restrictions. Night movements between 23:00 and 06:00 local are limited by quota and noise rules.

Published lanes the XQ code can carry half of

None of the 346 lanes the site publishes is flown end to end under this code. These 155 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.

Chennai to Stuttgart, joined at Stuttgart (STR), which this code reaches on 15 of its pairs.
Detroit to Stuttgart, joined at Stuttgart (STR), which this code reaches on 15 of its pairs.
Stuttgart to Mexico City, joined at Stuttgart (STR), which this code reaches on 15 of its pairs.
Stuttgart to Puebla, joined at Stuttgart (STR), which this code reaches on 15 of its pairs.
Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi, joined at Frankfurt-am-Main (FRA), which this code reaches on 12 of its pairs.
Amman to Frankfurt, joined at Frankfurt-am-Main (FRA), which this code reaches on 12 of its pairs.
Bangkok to Frankfurt, joined at Frankfurt-am-Main (FRA), which this code reaches on 12 of its pairs.
Bologna to Frankfurt, joined at Frankfurt-am-Main (FRA), which this code reaches on 12 of its pairs.

The countries the XQ code opens

Of the 35 countries and territories reached, 20 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 Türkiye with 29 airports on this code. The country desk for Türkiye sets out the customs practice, the working hours and the road legs behind these airports.

Türkiye (29 airports), Germany (18 airports), United Kingdom (8 airports), Netherlands (3 airports), Poland (3 airports), Italy (3 airports), Romania (2 airports), Denmark (2 airports), Spain (2 airports), France (2 airports).

Where to go next on the XQ network

Each of the 102 airports above has its own atlas entry with the full destination list, and each of the 240 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 Antalya (AYT), the route calculator with Dubai to AYT 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 SunExpress regularly appears in our routings, and the pages that describe those lanes in detail. If you need a specific city on SunExpress, ask and we will check the live schedule.

Country page: Türkiye →Istanbul

Markets in Middle East & Africa:

United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia Qatar Kuwait Oman Bahrain Jordan Lebanon Iraq Israel All countries →

On board courier vs air cargo

Whether the seat is on SunExpress 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 SunExpress

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

01Are you an agent or partner of SunExpress?

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 SunExpress?

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 SunExpress?

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 SunExpress?

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 SunExpress?

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 SunExpress rather than a cargo booking

People usually find this service when something has already gone wrong: a line has stopped, a sample is about to expire, a document has to be somewhere tomorrow that it cannot reach. It is worth understanding how the service works before that day rather than during it.

The economics are less strange than they look. A courier assignment costs roughly what a business-class ticket costs, plus a fee and the ground work at each end. Set against a stopped production line, a grounded aircraft, an expiring clinical sample or a tender that closes at noon, that number stops being the interesting part of the conversation very quickly.

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.

For Antalya specifically, that means the useful conversation is not “how much” but “what exactly is in the box, and when does it have to be in whose hands”. Answer those two and everything else, the routing, the carrier, the airport, the paperwork, the price, follows in under an hour.

How an assignment routed over Antalya runs

Most people booking a courier for the first time want to know what the hours look like. This is the real sequence for an Antalya assignment, the parts we control, the parts the airline controls, and the part where customs decides how the day goes.

Minute 0 to 15

You tell us what it is

Everything starts with an honest description of the goods. We ask what it is, what it costs, who is receiving it in Antalya and when it must be in their hands. Vague answers produce vague quotes and, far worse, customs problems at the other end.

Minute 15 to 45

We screen it and price it

We check three things at once: whether we may lawfully carry it, whether Türkiye 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

The matching runs against couriers who are available now, whose passport and visas suit the route to Antalya, and whose delivery history fits the value of the consignment. The ticket is then bought in the courier's own name, matching their passport exactly, a booking in anything but the traveller's legal name is refused at the gate.

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 Antalya 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 Antalya connects, the courier remains airside with it rather than clearing and re-entering.

On arrival

Customs, then a signature

At Antalya (AYT) 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 Antalya 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 Antalya (AYT).

Named consignee with authority

Someone in Antalya 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.

ATA Carnet and temporary admission

Where goods enter Türkiye temporarily and leave again, demonstration equipment, exhibition pieces, professional gear, a carnet avoids duty entirely and gives the courier a document the officer recognises immediately. It has to be issued before departure; there is no retrospective version.

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 Antalya (AYT) into an afternoon.

Tariff classification

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

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 Türkiye rather than a negotiating position.

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 Türkiye wants for your specific commodity at the quoting stage, because discovering it at Antalya (AYT) is far too late.

What an Antalya 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.

Distance and sector count

A direct flight to Antalya 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 an Antalya quote.

Size, weight and whether it fits a locker

Anything beyond normal cabin baggage means a second seat, and occasionally two. An extra seat sounds dramatic until you compare it with a charter: it is an order of magnitude cheaper and it moves at the speed of a scheduled flight.

Declared value and insurance

All-risk cover is priced on the declared value of the goods, and it is the number that matters, airline liability under the Montreal Convention is a fraction of what most courier consignments are worth. Understating the value to save a little on cover is a false economy the first time anything goes wrong.

Regulatory profile of the goods

Batteries, biological material, temperature-controlled consignments and anything export-controlled require preparation, sometimes a permit and occasionally a specialist packer. That work is real and it appears in the quote rather than as a surprise at the airport.

The ground legs at both ends

Collection in the Emirates and delivery beyond Antalya (AYT) are part of the job, not an extra. Where the delivery address is a long drive from the airport, or a second domestic sector is needed, we price it in from the start instead of stopping at arrivals.

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 Türkiye sit with the consignee unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.

Dubai skyline at dusk — A dhow crossed to India on the monsoon. Today the crossing takes an afternoon, and a person still carries what matters most.
The story of the Gulf

What can go wrong on an Antalya 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 Antalya, 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 Antalya

A second sector, a border crossing or a domestic flight beyond Antalya (AYT) 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 Antalya, 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 Antalya (AYT) 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.

EventsLAS → RUH

A show-control console after a failure during load-in.

Vendor pickup20:10

Two-leg routing23:30

Front of house07:45 +2

✓ Doors opened on time.

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.

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

How it moves

Signed for at the door, on time

Proof of delivery with a name and a minute, not a tracking guess.

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 — Two of the world’s great airlines call these runways home. We book the seat, you track the flight number.
Departures, every hour, every direction

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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Origin airport

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Shipment type

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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.

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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 SunExpress 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.