FD · hub Bangkok (DMK) · independent

Hand carry on Thai AirAsia

Thai AirAsia flies from Bangkok (DMK) in Thailand. 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 Thai AirAsia

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 Thai AirAsia, 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 Thai AirAsia fits in an OBC routing

Thai AirAsia is based in Thailand and operates from Bangkok (DMK) independently of the global alliances. For us a carrier is not a brand preference, it is a departure time. We book Thai AirAsia 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

This is a low-cost carrier, so cabin baggage limits are tighter and enforced more strictly than on a full-service airline. We confirm the allowance for the exact flight before quoting, and where a consignment does not fit we book an additional seat or a different carrier rather than gambling at the gate.

Connections

Where a single Thai AirAsia 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 Thai AirAsia

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 Thai AirAsia 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 Thai AirAsia 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 Thai AirAsia first, at a fare the quote can carry.

on Thai AirAsia: 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

Thai AirAsia 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 FD code that yields 70 city pairs across 61 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.

61airports on this carrier

17countries and territories reached

70scheduled city pairs held

356average daily flights across them

The schedule the desk holds carries the FD code on 70 city pairs, reaching 61 airports in 17 countries and territories. Some of those sectors are flown by Thai AirAsia 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. 80.3 per cent of those airports sit on Asian time zones, and the next largest block is on Australian time zones.

The longest sector held for the carrier is Adelaide (ADL) to Kunming (KMG) at about 7,658 km, and the shortest is Brisbane City (BNE) to Maroochydore (MCY) at about 87 km. 64.3 per cent of the pairs are under 1,500 km. This is a short sector operator, which for a hand carry out of the Gulf means it is almost always the second leg of the routing rather than the first. The airport that appears most often on those pairs is Bangkok (DMK), on 46 of them, which is 65.7 per cent of everything held under this code.

The thickest sector under the code is Brisbane City (BNE) to Sydney (SYD) at about 43.7 movements a day, which across a full day is roughly one every 0.5 hours. On a sector at that cadence a missed departure costs a wait rather than a night. That sector does not touch Bangkok (DMK), the airport this code is booked through most often, so the desk treats it as a seat sold under the code rather than flown by the carrier, and confirms the operating airline before it quotes. 22 of the 70 pairs run four or more times a day and 18 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 Bangkok (DMK) the code leans on Chiangmai (CNX) on 10, Brisbane City (BNE) on 6, Adelaide (ADL) 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 FD code most often

From	To	Country	Flights a day	km	Open it
Brisbane City BNE	Sydney SYD	Australia	43.7	753	the pair page
Chiangmai CNX	Bangkok DMK	Thailand	28.3	568	plan this
Adelaide ADL	Sydney SYD	Australia	22	1,164	the pair page
Bangkok DMK	Phuket HKT	Thailand	21.6	692	the pair page
Bangkok DMK	Hat Yai HDY	Thailand	19.7	776	plan this
Naha OKA	Taipei TPE	Taiwan	16	655	the pair page
Brisbane City BNE	Rockhampton ROK	Australia	15.9	518	plan this
Brisbane City BNE	Townsville TSV	Australia	13.4	1,112	plan this
Adelaide ADL	Port Lincoln PLO	Australia	11.9	245	plan this
Bangkok DMK	Surat Thani URT	Thailand	11.3	555	plan this
Bangkok DMK	Nakhon Si Thammarat NST	Thailand	10.1	602	plan this
Bangkok DMK	Udon Thani UTH	Thailand	10	451	plan this
Chiang Rai CEI	Bangkok DMK	Thailand	9.1	676	plan this
Bangkok DMK	Khon Kaen KKC	Thailand	8.6	368	plan this
Bangkok DMK	Krabi KBV	Thailand	8.4	670	plan this
Chitose / Tomakomai CTS	Taipei TPE	Taiwan	7.6	2,712	the pair page

The 16 sectors the FD code appears on most often, out of 70. 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 Bangkok from the Gulf

The schedule the desk holds shows no FD 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 Bangkok (DMK), and Thai AirAsia carries the second.

UAE gateway	Operated by	Flights a day	km	Open it
Dubai DXB	flydubai	2.3	4,880	plan this
Jebel Ali DWC	operator not held	0.1	4,896	plan this

The first leg, measured. These are the 2 links the desk holds from a UAE gateway into Bangkok (DMK), the airport this code is booked through most often.

Night restrictions on the airports the FD 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. 7 of the 61 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.

Adelaide (ADL), curfew. Curfew between 23:00 and 06:00 local.
Taipei (TPE), night operations. Operates around the clock.
Sydney (SYD), curfew. Curfew between 23:00 and 06:00 local. Jet departures are not permitted in that window and a late departure waits until morning.
Singapore (SIN), night operations. Operates around the clock.
Tokyo (NRT), night restrictions. Scheduled movements are limited between 23:00 and 06:00 local; late departures usually route through Haneda instead.
Hong Kong (HKG), night operations. Operates around the clock. Night departures to Europe and the Gulf are routine.

Published lanes the FD code can carry half of

None of the 346 lanes the site publishes is flown end to end under this code. These 65 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.

Dubai to Brisbane, joined at Brisbane City (BNE), which this code reaches on 6 of its pairs.
Amsterdam to Taipei, joined at Taipei (TPE), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.
Dubai to Taipei, joined at Taipei (TPE), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.
Eindhoven to Taipei, joined at Taipei (TPE), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.
Taipei to Frankfurt, joined at Taipei (TPE), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.
Los Angeles to Taipei, joined at Taipei (TPE), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.
Phoenix to Taipei, joined at Taipei (TPE), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.
San Francisco to Taipei, joined at Taipei (TPE), which this code reaches on 4 of its pairs.

The countries the FD code opens

Of the 17 countries and territories reached, 7 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 Thailand with 12 airports on this code. The country desk for Thailand sets out the customs practice, the working hours and the road legs behind these airports.

Thailand (12 airports), Australia (11 airports), China (8 airports), Vietnam (5 airports), India (4 airports), Japan (4 airports), Malaysia (3 airports), Cambodia (3 airports), Laos (2 airports), Taiwan (2 airports).

Where to go next on the FD network

Each of the 61 airports above has its own atlas entry with the full destination list, and each of the 70 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 Bangkok (DMK), the route calculator with Dubai to DMK 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 Thai AirAsia regularly appears in our routings, and the pages that describe those lanes in detail. If you need a specific city on Thai AirAsia, ask and we will check the live schedule.

Country page: Thailand →Bangkok

Markets in Asia-Pacific:

China Hong Kong SAR Japan South Korea Taiwan Singapore Malaysia Thailand Vietnam Indonesia All countries →

On board courier vs air cargo

Whether the seat is on Thai AirAsia 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 Thai AirAsia

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

01Are you an agent or partner of Thai AirAsia?

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 Thai AirAsia?

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 Thai AirAsia?

This is a low-cost carrier, so cabin baggage limits are tighter and enforced more strictly than on a full-service airline. We confirm the exact allowance for the specific flight before quoting.

04Can I fly as a courier on Thai AirAsia?

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 Thai AirAsia?

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 Thai AirAsia 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 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.

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.

For Bangkok 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 Bangkok runs

From the first message to the delivery signature, a Bangkok 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 Bangkok.

Minute 15 to 45

We screen it and price it

Screening comes before pricing, always. Shipper, consignee, commodity, end use, route. In parallel we check the cabin allowance for the specific flights that could work to Bangkok, because an allowance that fits on one aircraft type does not automatically fit on another.

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 Bangkok, 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

At collection the seal number is recorded, the goods are photographed and the paperwork is checked line by line against what is in the box. A description that does not match the contents is a common reason a hand-carry is held at Bangkok (DMK), and it is entirely preventable.

In flight

The consignment stays in the cabin

It stays in one named courier's documented custody for the whole sector, in the aircraft cabin wherever size, classification, security rules and the operating airline permit it, and otherwise under an approved accompanied process. On the ground at any transit point the courier stays airside with it. There is no depot, no consolidation window and no overnight sort anywhere in the routing to Bangkok.

On arrival

Customs, then a signature

At Bangkok (DMK) 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 Bangkok 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 Bangkok (DMK).

ATA Carnet and temporary admission

Where goods enter Thailand 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.

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 Thailand 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.

Tariff classification

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

Legalisation and attestation

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

Duty, tax and who pays it

Import duty and VAT or GST in Thailand are the consignee's cost unless you have agreed otherwise in writing, and the terms should be settled before departure. It is a small conversation before the flight and an expensive one after it.

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 Bangkok (DMK) into an afternoon.

What a Bangkok 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 Bangkok 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.

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 Bangkok routing the flight schedule usually decides this rather than anybody's preference.

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.

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.

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.

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 Bangkok 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 Thailand 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 Bangkok 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 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.

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.

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 Bangkok, on any carrier, from any of the seven UAE airports. Rebooking is a phone call, not a rescue operation.

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 Bangkok (DMK) 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 consignee is unreachable

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

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.

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

Collected by hand, not by network

A named courier picks up at your door, the clock starts the moment you confirm.

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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Origin airport

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Shipment type

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What does the company do?

Your name

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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 Thai AirAsia 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.