Ulm is on the list because STR is reachable and busy. 127 scheduled nonstop destinations and 31 operating carriers mean the desk is rarely stuck for a routing, and 55 minutes of road means you are rarely too far to take it. Those two facts together are the whole reason Ulm has a page of its own.
Open · Germany desk · Ulm
On Board Courier, Ulm
Time critical hand carry assignments from Ulm. One consignment in the cabin, one handover against signature, 55 minutes between your front door and the check in desk at STR.
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 inUlm, Baden-Wurttemberg
Nearest gateSTR · Stuttgart
Drive to the aircraft79 km · 55 minutes
Nonstop from STR127 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
You will usually know the day before, sometimes only in the morning. The desk sends the routing out of STR, the sealed consignment reaches you or you collect it, and the drive of 55 minutes is timed backwards from the check in deadline rather than the departure. Where the routing runs through the Emirates it goes by way of IST, on one ticket, with the connection booked long enough to be real.
Getting to the aircraft from Ulm
Measured door to terminal, Ulm to STR is 79 km and 55 minutes. That is the number the desk uses when it decides whether to call Ulm for a departure this evening.
At 55 minutes the desk will normally ask you to leave Ulm about three hours before departure, more if the routing needs a bag drop cut off. A backup gate changes what can be promised out of Ulm. From Ulm, Friedrichshafen is 1 hour 24 minutes away and flies to 16 airports nonstop, so the desk has somewhere to move a consignment when the first flight goes.
| IATA | Airport | By road | Driving time | Nonstop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STR | Stuttgart | 79 km | 55 minutes | 127 |
| FDH | Friedrichshafen | 102 km | 1 hour 24 minutes | 16 |
| MUC | Munich | 160 km | 1 hour 38 minutes | 221 |
| NUE | Nuremberg | 197 km | 2 hours 16 minutes | 71 |
Ulm is a city of 120,000 people in Baden-Wurttemberg, and the clock there runs 2 hours behind the Emirates in summer and 3 in winter. Road distances are measured driving routes rather than straight lines, and nonstop counts come from the scheduled route data this site publishes.
What STR reaches without a change
The relevant question about STR is not how big it is but what it flies. 127 nonstop destinations across 37 countries, and the ones with real frequency are listed here.
| IATA | City | Airport | Frequency | Operators |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PMI | Palma De Mallorca | Palma De Mallorca | about 9 departures a day | 3 operators: Eurowings, TUI fly, Condor |
| AYT | Antalya | Antalya | about 9 departures a day | 4 operators: Pegasus Airlines |
| SAW | Istanbul | Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen | about 6 departures a day | 2 operators: Pegasus Airlines, AJet |
| IST | Istanbul | Istanbul | about 5 departures a day | 1 operator: Turkish Airlines |
| PRN | Prishtina | Prishtina Priština | about 5 departures a day | 2 operators: Eurowings |
| AMS | Amsterdam | Amsterdam Schiphol | about 5 departures a day | 1 operator: KLM |
| MUC | Munich | Munich | about 5 departures a day | 1 operator: Lufthansa |
| BCN | Barcelona | Barcelona | about 4 departures a day | 2 operators: Eurowings, Vueling |
| ADB | Izmir | Adnan Menderes | about 4 departures a day | 2 operators: Pegasus Airlines |
| SKG | Thessaloniki | Thessaloniki Macedonia | about 4 departures a day | 2 operators: Eurowings, Aegean Airlines |
Counting every airport a courier in Ulm can drive to, the combined nonstop board is 250 airports. Frequencies are average daily flights and change with the season, so the desk checks the live schedule before it offers you anything.
The industry inside this catchment
Why hand carry demand arises near Ulm is easier to show than to argue. The sites below are public knowledge and are named only to explain the traffic through STR; none of them is described here as a client.
- Mercedes-Benz, Sindelfingen and Untertuerkheim. S-Class assembly, powertrain and research. Stuttgart is the densest automotive engineering cluster in Europe. It sits on STR, which is 55 minutes from Ulm by road, and the sector is automotive.
- Porsche, Zuffenhausen. Sports car and engine assembly. Low volume, high value, and intolerant of a missing component. It sits on STR, which is 55 minutes from Ulm by road, and the sector is automotive.
- Audi, Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm. Assembly, aluminium body construction and engines. Two plants, two airports, one takt. It sits on STR, which is 55 minutes from Ulm by road, and the sector is automotive.
- Zeiss SMT, Oberkochen. Optics for lithography systems. The optics that make lithography possible, made in one place. It sits on STR, which is 55 minutes from Ulm by road, and the sector is semiconductor.
Why a courier in Ulm is useful to the desk
Most of what the desk moves out of Baden-Wurttemberg is small, sealed and late. The constraint is never the size, it is finding a person near enough to STR. Ulm is near enough: 55 minutes to STR, on a board with 127 nonstop destinations.
There is no nonstop between STR and the Emirates, and the page is not going to pretend otherwise. From Ulm the best single change is Istanbul (IST), and IST to DXB is flown by Emirates and flydubai, about 5 departures a day. Counting a normal connection that is around 8h 07m gate to gate, so an assignment between Ulm 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 Germany list
Show the 12 closest, and how far each is from Ulm
Reutlingen59 km away, STR in 28 minutesAugsburg67 km away, MUC in 57 minutesStuttgart74 km away, STR in 20 minutesHeilbronn100 km away, STR in 55 minutesPforzheim109 km away, STR in 38 minutesIngolstadt113 km away, MUC in 49 minutesMunich121 km away, MUC in 34 minutesKarlsruhe135 km away, STR in 58 minutesNuremberg142 km away, NUE in 12 minutesHeidelberg147 km away, FRA in 55 minutesWürzburg155 km away, NUE in 1 hour 6 minutesMannheim165 km away, FRA in 54 minutes
All 56 Germany cities are listed on the Germany 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 STR and the other airports listed above, between Germany 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 55 minutes drive to STR. 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 STR, 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 Ulm list
01How far is Ulm from STR?
About 55 minutes, 79 km by road. The desk has that number for every city on the list and uses it to decide who gets called for a departure out of STR tonight.
02What can I reach from Ulm without a change of aircraft?
STR serves 127 airports nonstop across 37 countries with 31 operating carriers, and counting every gate a courier in Ulm can drive to, the combined nonstop board is 250 airports. That is the practical range of a single assignment from here before anybody has to connect.
03Getting from Ulm to the Emirates: nonstop or not?
From Ulm the best single change is Istanbul (IST), and IST to DXB is flown by Emirates and flydubai, about 5 departures a day. Counting a normal connection that is around 8h 07m gate to gate, so an assignment between Ulm 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?
No. Most assignments touch the Emirates because the desk is there, but couriers on this list live in Ulm and fly from STR. Being in Ulm changes which offers you see, not whether you can be on the list.
05Does it cost anything to apply?
No. Applying is free, screening is free, and being on the Ulm list is free. The Academy costs AED 199, paid once, and it comes back in full on top of the fee for your first completed assignment. It is the only payment a courier in Ulm ever makes to us.
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 STR
If you can be at STR within 55 minutes and you have a passport with room in it, the rest is a conversation.
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