One trip, one consignment, one handover. No round, no van, no warehouse. The consignment is sealed before you take it, it stays in the cabin from POA onwards, and it is signed for by a named person at the far end. From Santa Marithe trip begins with 4 hours 24 minutes of road to Porto Alegre Salgado Filho.
Open · Brazil desk · Santa Maria
On Board Courier, Santa Maria
Urgent consignments leave Santa Marithe way passengers do: in the cabin, with a person. POA is 4 hours 24 minutes from the city and the desk pays for the seat.
OnBoard Courier is a United Arab Emirates company, contracted by ICSL FZE and run from Dubai. A city named on this site is a place we cover and route through, not a separate company in that city. Assignments are contracted under UAE law, and the terms are published in full under legal and policies.
Based inSanta Maria, Rio Grande do Sul
Nearest gatePOA · Porto Alegre
Drive to the aircraft290 km · 4 hours 24 minutes
Nonstop from POA19 airports
EngagementFreelance · per assignment
Fee per assignmentAED 900 to 2,600
Apply for this position
Applying is free. Freelance · self-employed ·
posted 7 September 2026 · open until 7 March 2027
What the work pays
The fee for an assignment is agreed with you in writing before you accept it. These are the figures the site publishes, and what the desk covers on top of them.
Top published feeAED 2,000The highest fee the site shows for a single assignment: sealed medical samples in a cooled case, Dubai to Singapore.
Published band, per assignmentAED 900 to 2,600A document pouch to London is AED 1,200, an aircraft part to Frankfurt AED 1,500, an escorted watch on the Berlin lane AED 1,800.
What the flight costs youAED 0The desk books and pays the ticket, the transfers and, where the routing needs it, the hotel. A courier never fronts the fare.
The one payment you makeAED 199, returnedThe Academy, paid once. It comes back in full on top of the fee for your first completed assignment. Applying itself is free.
Fees vary with the lane, the notice, the waiting time and whether the return is immediate, so the desk quotes each assignment individually rather than pretending one number fits every trip. You are self-employed and there is no minimum: accept or decline whatever you like, and declining costs you nothing. Earnings are paid per delivery by bank transfer, they appear in your courier portal, and you can request a payout once the balance reaches AED 200. Apply and see the flight board.
You fly as a passengerOne consignment in the cabin, one handover against signature. No warehouse, no van, no round.
The desk books and pays the ticketFlight, transfers and, where the routing needs it, a hotel are booked before you leave for the airport.
Paid per assignmentA fee agreed in writing before you accept, paid to your bank account after the signature. Applying is free.
How to start, in four steps
1
Apply once
One application covers every country desk. Tell us which passports you hold and where you can travel.
2
Verification and the Academy
Identity and background check, then a short course on customs, handovers and chain of custody.
3
Your first offer
The desk sends the routing, the dates and the fee in writing. You accept or decline, nothing is automatic.
4
Fly, hand over, get paid
Collect, board, clear customs in person, hand over against signature, and the fee is paid to your account.
The assignment
A trip out of Santa Maria has four fixed points: the collection, the 4 hours 24 minutes drive to POA, the sector itself and the signature at the far end. Where the routing runs through the Emirates it goes by way of GRU, on one ticket, with the connection booked long enough to be real. Everything between them is arranged by the desk and confirmed to you in writing.
Getting to the aircraft from Santa Maria
The drive is the honest half of this work. Santa Maria to Porto Alegre Salgado Filho is 290 km and about 4 hours 24 minutes, and an assignment is planned backwards from the bag drop rather than from the departure.
At 290 km the drive is the part most likely to go wrong, so the desk over allows for it: an earlier start from Santa Maria, or a hotel by POA the night before, paid by us. Only POA is within reach of Santa Maria at 4 hours 24 minutes, so the 19 destinations it serves nonstop are what you can be offered. There is no second airport within reach of Santa Maria to fall back on.
| IATA | Airport | By road | Driving time | Nonstop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| POA | Porto Alegre Salgado Filho | 290 km | 4 hours 24 minutes | 19 |
Santa Maria is a city of 272,000 people in Rio Grande do Sul, and the clock there runs 7 hours behind the Emirates all year. Road distances are measured driving routes rather than straight lines, and nonstop counts come from the scheduled route data this site publishes. Only airports this site publishes a scheduled nonstop board for are listed, so a smaller field nearer Santa Maria may exist and still not appear in the table above.
What POA reaches without a change
This is the departure board a courier in Santa Maria works from: 19 nonstop destinations out of POA, 7 operating carriers, and average daily frequencies taken from the scheduled route data this site publishes.
| IATA | City | Airport | Frequency | Operators |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRU | São Paulo | São Paulo Guarulhos - Governador André Franco Montoro | about 19 departures a day | 3 operators: Azul, LATAM, GOL |
| GIG | Rio de Janeiro | Rio de Janeiro RIOgaleão-Tom Jobim | about 12 departures a day | 3 operators: Azul, LATAM, GOL |
| VCP | Campinas | Campinas Viracopos | about 8 departures a day | 1 operator: Azul |
| CWB | Curitiba | Curitiba Afonso Pena | about 7 departures a day | 2 operators: Azul, LATAM |
| BSB | Brasília | Brasília Presidente Juscelino Kubistschek | about 5 departures a day | 2 operators: LATAM, GOL |
| CNF | Belo Horizonte | Belo Horizonte Tancredo Neves | about 4 departures a day | 2 operators: Azul, LATAM |
| FLN | Florianópolis | Florianópolis Hercílio Luz | about one departure a day | 2 operators: LATAM, GOL |
| AEP | Buenos Aires | Jorge Newbery Airfield | about one departure a day | 2 operators: LATAM, Aerolineas Argentinas |
| REC | Recife | Recife Guararapes - Gilberto Freyre | about one departure a day | 1 operator: Azul |
| PTY | Tocumen | Tocumen | about one departure a day | 1 operator: Copa Airlines |
Counting every airport a courier in Santa Maria can drive to, the combined nonstop board is 19 airports. Frequencies are average daily flights and change with the season, so the desk checks the live schedule before it offers you anything.
What moves out of Santa Maria
The site does not hold a public industrial file for the POA catchment, so this page will not invent one. What it can say honestly is that Santa Maria generates the ordinary urgent traffic every working city generates: signed originals, spare parts, samples and small high value items that missed a cut off.
Why a courier in Santa Maria is useful to the desk
A courier in Santa Maria shortens the chain by one link. Without one, an urgent consignment out of Rio Grande do Sul has to be trucked to a hub or flown out with somebody sent from elsewhere. With one, it is 4 hours 24 minutes of driving and a boarding pass.
The Gulf is one change away from POA rather than nonstop, which is worth stating plainly. From Santa Marithe best single change is São Paulo (GRU), and GRU to DXB is flown by Emirates, about one departure a day. Counting a normal connection that is around 17h 56m gate to gate, so an assignment between Santa Maria and the Emirates is planned as a connecting itinerary and the desk books the whole thing on one ticket.
The nearest other cities on the Brazil list
Show the 12 closest, and how far each is from Santa Maria
Santa Cruz do Sul133 km away, POA in 2 hours 22 minutesBento Gonçalves229 km away, POA in 2 hoursPorto Alegre251 km away, POA in 18 minutesNovo Hamburgo259 km away, POA in 46 minutesCaxias do Sul261 km away, POA in 2 hours 4 minutesPelotas271 km away, POA in 3 hours 58 minutesGravataí273 km away, POA in 26 minutesCriciúma445 km away, POA in 3 hours 30 minutesGuarapuava530 km away, CWB in 3 hours 40 minutesBlumenau557 km away, CWB in 3 hours 15 minutesBrusque558 km away, CWB in 3 hours 13 minutesFlorianópolis563 km away, CWB in 3 hours 54 minutes
All 97 Brazil cities are listed on the Brazil courier desk, which stays the general application for the country.
The engagement, and who we are looking for
The engagement
- Type: freelance, self-employed. You are an independent courier accepting individual assignments, not an employee, and you decide which ones you take.
- Where it runs: assignments are flown out of POA, between Brazil and wherever the consignment is going, with the return leg agreed per mission.
- Hours: variable. An assignment is a single trip, not a shift or a roster.
- How you are paid: a fee per completed assignment, agreed in writing before you accept it. The fees published on this site run from AED 1,200 for a document pouch to AED 2,000 for a cooled medical consignment, and the figure for your assignment reflects the lane, the notice, the waiting time and whether the return is immediate.
- What the desk pays: the flight, the transfers and, where the routing needs it, the hotel. A courier never pays for the ticket and never fronts the fare.
- Applying is free. No payment is required to apply, to be screened or to be placed on the courier list. The Academy costs AED 199, paid once, and is returned in full on top of the fee for your first completed assignment. It is the only payment a courier ever makes to us.
What we look for
- A passport with comfortable remaining validity and free pages, and the right to enter the country on the routing. The desk checks the visa position for your specific passport before any assignment is offered.
- A clean background check and a willingness to be verified. Couriers carry other people’s property.
- Availability at short notice, and a realistic view of the 4 hours 24 minutes drive to POA. Most assignments are confirmed hours, not days, before departure.
- Presentable, calm and articulate at a customs counter. The consignment is only as smooth as the person carrying it.
- A working phone, reachable on the number you gave us, for the whole assignment.
What we provide
- The ticket. Always. A courier never pays for the flight and never fronts the fare.
- The paperwork, prepared before you reach POA, and a named contact at the desk on both ends.
- A briefing on the consignment, the consignee and what the customs position at the far end looks like.
- A fee per completed assignment, agreed with you in advance and paid by bank transfer after the handover.
Questions about the Santa Maria list
01How far is Santa Maria from POA?
It is 290 km of driving from Santa Maria, roughly 4 hours 24 minutes. Parking or the transfer is paid by the desk, and if the timings are tight the desk pays for a room near POA the night before instead of hoping.
02What can I reach from Santa Maria without a change of aircraft?
POA serves 19 airports nonstop across 5 countries with 7 operating carriers, and counting every gate a courier in Santa Maria can drive to, the combined nonstop board is 19 airports. That is the practical range of a single assignment from here before anybody has to connect.
03Getting from Santa Maria to the Emirates: nonstop or not?
From Santa Marithe best single change is São Paulo (GRU), and GRU to DXB is flown by Emirates, about one departure a day. Counting a normal connection that is around 17h 56m gate to gate, so an assignment between Santa Maria and the Emirates is planned as a connecting itinerary and the desk books the whole thing on one ticket.
04Do I have to live in the UAE to be on this list?
You do not. A residence visa is not asked for and not needed to be on the Santa Maria list. What is asked for is a passport, the right to enter the country on the routing, and the ability to reach POA.
05Does it cost anything to apply?
It is free to apply from Santa Maria and free to be screened. The one charge anywhere in the process is the AED 199 Academy, paid once and refunded on top of your first assignment fee.
06How is my fee agreed?
The desk sends the routing, the timing and the fee for that specific assignment in writing. You accept or decline it. Nothing is deducted or charged without your written agreement.
Apply to fly out of POA
Add your name to the Santa Maria list. A form, a screening call, and the desk knows who to ring when something has to leave Rio Grande do Sul tonight.
Apply for this positionSee all openingsThe POA atlas entry · The Brazil courier desk · Brazil country guide · All courier openings · Apply to the courier network