Shipments done by Travellers

We had to fly as the ship was freight only. We went to Shelburne on a Friday, as arranged, to pick up the bikes only to find 1) the ship didn

You have a choice of Gulf Air or Iran Air from Shiraz. Gulf were honest enough to point me to Iran Air who were about $200 cheaper for 244kg bike/crate(lower dangerous goods surcharge, I think). I seemed to be the first person ever to have attempted anything like this from Shiraz. No agents or specialist crating people so you are on your own. Found a local carpenter who did me an excellent crate overnight for $80. This, and handling all the customs stuff myself, was a bit of a nightmare when my Farsi is limited. Bike went to Tehran and then on to London. The connection delayed it a week and it ended up coming in to Manston Airport in Kent with a plane full of Tate Gallery art work. There were no agents in Iran but in UK they are keen for you to use one - I didn't so no costs for storage or agent. Manston airport were a fantastic help (thanks Stewart) and we had to go to Ramsgate to get customs clearance. As a sea freight port the bike/carnet was a little out of the ordinary. They let it through without inspection and with little interest in the carnet or anything else. Suspect the lowish value and Saturday afternoon may have had some influence on this.
If I did it again I might try Tehran airport and avoid the connection, but the small Shiraz airport meant novelty value and easy to track down the key people. By the time I left I'd met so many airport staff I was waved away on the plane.
At Manston it sounded like it was very unusual to get cargo flight like this from Iran but they were able to clear it all through on a Saturday. Heathrow customs only open 9-12.30 Mon-Fri so this saved me two days and time off work.

I did not use them but this is valuable information because I spent days trying to find a shipper to get my bike out of Caracas. I decided to drive to Bogota where shipping will be easier. One shipper, Aeropostal, wanted me to remove my wheels, gas tank, luggage, battery and windshield and then wash the tank out with water - not!

Shipping = 300kg x $1.51 = $455.41
Danger Goods Certificate (DG) = $ 50
Air Way Bill (AWB) = $ 10
Fuel Surcharge = $62.75
Total to Lan Chile - $578.16
Motorcycle packing = 17,000 Chilean Pesos or $26.15

Total in Chile = $604.

On a whim I shipped my bike back to NYC from Santiago yesterday. I was flying out of the airport already back to NYC for a week of work, and decided to see how much it might cost to send the bike back. I told myself I would send it back if I could do it for under $700, since I had never heard of anyone sending a bike back from southern SA for less than $790.

Sent it back via Lan Chile to NYC for $604, plus $25 port charge in the airport at NYC.

They can send also send stuff to to Madrid or Frankfurt. You want to ask for the 300 kg weight even
if your bike weights less because it will save you money. Here is what the charges would probably be for a shipment to Europe.

100kg and up, 300kg and up, 500kg and up
Madrid $3.18 $1.90 $1.70
Frankfrut $3.18 $1.90 $1.70

So for this calculation an example I will assume your bike is the same weight as mine (on a pallet). 251kg. Price to Frankfurt or Madrid appears to be the same.

Shipping = 300kg x $1.90 = $570
Danger Goods Certificate (DG) = $ 50
Air Way Bill (AWB) = $ 10
Fuel Surcharge = 251kg x $0.25= $ 62.75
Motorcycle packing = 17,000 Chilean Pesos or $26.15

Total to Europe = $718.90

When I was working with them, they didn't tell me about the fuel surcharge until the last minute. 4+ hours after we starting to work getting the motorcycle shipped and when the quoted me a price. So I refused to pay it. I told them to remove the charge, or to unpack the motorcycle.

Eventually (1 additional hour) after talking to the boss, they were able to reduce the shipping charge rate to cancel out the additional fuel surcharge, and an ended up paying only 8.75$ more instead of $62.75 more.

The motorcycle packing is through a separate company Teisa. You can negotiate the rate with them. They basically put it on pallet, and strap it down and rap it in plastic and cardboard.

Upon receiving it in NYC, it was on an additional pallet (metal), tied down with a large cargo net, and wrapped in more plastic. The motorcycle was in good condition other than two things. The front tire was deflated, and the front fairing was flexed, but the fairing returned back to normal after a couple of hours of being unwrapped.

For prep work to the motorcycle, I was told that I needed to drain the fuel tank, and disconnect the battery. I drained the fuel level down to the reserve petcock, since I know that FAA law doesn't require complete draining. Next time I would probably not disconnect the battery, and just tell them I did, like I did on the shipment from Panama to Bogota. FAA law doesn't require the battery to be disconnected either. When I arrived in NYC, someone along the way was nice enough to deflate my front tire (but not the rear) so I had to spend a bit of time inflating it by hand.

Overall I had a good experience, but it just took a lot of patience.

Getting customs done in Santiago was reasonably easy. Lan Chile kept wanting me to get paperwork done I didn't need (something called a DAS). I ended up just having the customs inspector stamp every piece of paper I had.

Upon picking up the motorcycle in NYC (it got to NYC before I did even though I flew out the same day), I had to pay an additional $25 charge here. Apparently all freight coming into JFK airport is subject to this
charge.

The freight company in NYC is a sub-contractor, not Lan chile, and they were a bit slow. Had to go from Lan Chile cargo to the Customs and USDA (now a part of Customs) (there is a free airport bus, just ask the airport drivers how to get to the post office). I was chatting with the USDA inspector and he signed me off without looking at the bike, based on me getting santizied upon entering Chile. Customs was quick, as the bike was titled in the US. Usually you have to make an appointment to have USDA (or whatever they are calling it recently) to inspect the bike for dirt and such. So if you ship your bike in, make sure it is clean.

Talk to Cristian Abarca, Lan Carga, Aeropuerto. 694-7614, in Santiago. He speaks mainly spanish with a small bit of english. I worked with mainly. He is in the Teisa building, not the Lan Chile building. Ask the security guards and they will point you to him. Young Guy. Good guy.

Also in the Lan Chile building, international shipment desks, I worked with Natalio F. 694-7619, and 694-7740. He speaks english. However talk to Cristian first if your spanish is functional.

If they don't tell about the fuel surcharge price until the last moment when you are ready pay (like they did for me), then refuse to pay it. Tell them to unload the motorcycle, cause you are not paying it because they didn't tell you about the charge. The will go talk to the Jefe (boss), and they can reduce the per KG charge, to make up for the fuel surcharge.

Also you can pay via Credit card, you just have to go to a different office (what they call the new building). Cristian knows about this, but Natalio didn't.

Oh, btw, I checked how much it would be to send it back from NYC to Chile as I thought it I could return it at near the same price. No way. Return shipment from NYC to Chile would have been over $1500. I think I'll drive back down instead on a different route this time.

--Terry

Bilingual, Helpful

VERY Extensive Search of ALL contents when exporting by plane from Colombia