Talk:Air courier

(WT-en) Andrew wondered how others felt about vfd'ing this page. To me, it qualifies quite well as another way of seeing travel, and I would have no objections at all to keeping it and developing it into a useful page, although it's obviously pretty limited as it stands. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 21:43, 24 May 2006 (EDT)

This page needs some more info that I could not provide. someone who has used this method of travel should really write on it. I have not, i have only read about it and saw it in eurotrip. and also plan on using it traveling next summer. --brian (the one who originally posted it... btw what's VDFing?)

I VFD'd, because I thought we had an travel topic article that covered this, but I was wrong. I checked Travel topics and I didn't see anything that this could fit into. I guess I would have to vote keep. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 21:50, 24 May 2006 (EDT)

P.S. to the user who posted above VFD means we vote on weather to keep or delete the article. Sorry for jumping the gun.

P.P.S. To the user who created this how about creating an user name/account?

(WT-en) Brian hey, i made an account

Links to information

*www.courier.org [http://www.courier.org/] - quick scan looks like valuable info *www.plantetickets.com [http://www.planetickets.com/air_courier.htm]

Both of the above links are now broken.

A few news which say this is dying or no longer worth doing:

• http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21691542/ns/travel-travel_tips/t/air-courier-travel-no-longer-bargain/
• http://budgettravel.about.com/cs/aircouriers/a/mission_courier.htm
• http://work.chron.com/air-courier-jobs-21213.html

Basically, fewer document shipments hand-carried because more documents are transmitted on-line, more restrictive security post-9/11, more carriers using their own aircraft for courier parcels, and fares from other competitive sources that mean a ticket "ex- baggage allowance" is really no cheaper. Apparently a few FedEx items are still hand-carried onto commercial flights in certain premium price categories, but it's rare.

In 2013, (with correction ) claimed air courier travel to no longer be available in the US, and also attacks the content at discount airlines and consolidators. K7L (talk) 02:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Is this article obsolete?

Who does this anymore? Very few people and declining, it appears. Is it in the interest of travellers to have an article about this topic anymore? What do you all think? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:27, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Does this even still exist?

Does it? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Dunno. According to https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/air-travellers-paid-to-carry-packages-1.6616893 a startup Fly and Fetch in Edmonton is claiming to offer a different model which they call "crowdshipping"; the theory is that you buy your own tickets through conventional means and, if you happen to have some unused checked baggage allowance, they'll dump an unsealed box of whatever someone else wanted to send back to the old country on you to bring on your trip.

Supposedly cheaper than FedUPS and the like for some destinations, but there are various pitfalls ranging from strict weight limits on airline luggage to items being subject to tax, duties or non-tariff barriers (such as the litany of bizarre restrictions on importing foodstuffs to various countries) at destination. Supposedly other "crowdshipping" organisations have attempted similar models, but most seem to either be defunct (like PiggyBee) or aimed primarily at domestic road travel (like CoColis in France or UPS-owned Roadie in the US).

Is it worth mentioning "crowdshipping" in this article, or is it too marginal a phenomenon with too many obstacles in the way post-9/11? 204.237.88.70 00:11, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Not directly relevant to the question asked by 204.237., but it seems this practice may very well be alive, if rarer than in the past.

I don't know the details, but a friend of mine recently got a free plane ticket from Portugal to Turkey in exchange for transporting machinery parts, weighing 70 kg in total, and customs cleared if I'm not mistaken. He said they also provided a free (but non-changeable) return ticket for the next day, but he preferred not to use it in order to spend some time in Turkey. Vidimian (talk) 14:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)