Most air freight forwarders do indeed offer you complete door-to-door service. This means you don’t have to worry about individual transport stages, but receive everything from a single source. However, it’s important to understand how this service is structured and what options are available to you.

What Does Door-to-Door Service Mean in Air Freight?

Imagine you want to ship electronic components from your warehouse in Munich to a customer in New York. True door-to-door service means the forwarder picks up the goods directly from your warehouse and transports them right to your recipient’s door. You have just one contact person for the entire transport route.

This complete service includes pickup from your location, all necessary customs formalities, air transport, and delivery to the recipient. You receive end-to-end shipment tracking and don’t need to coordinate different transport service providers.

The Three Phases of Air Freight Transport: Pre-carriage, Main Carriage, and On-carriage

To understand how air freight works, you need to know the three fundamental transport phases. This breakdown also helps you better evaluate the different service offerings from forwarders.

Pre-carriage: The Journey to the Departure Airport

Pre-carriage covers the transport of your shipment from the shipping location to the departure airport. Let’s take the case where you want to send machinery from your plant in Stuttgart to Singapore. Pre-carriage would include transport from your plant to Frankfurt or Munich airport.

During this phase, your shipment is usually transported by truck. The forwarder organizes pickup, handles secure packaging for air transport, and prepares all necessary export documents. For valuable or time-critical shipments, you can often choose between different pre-carriage options, from cost-effective consolidated solutions to direct transport.

Main Carriage: The Air Transport

Main carriage is the actual flight between airports. The core competency of an air freight forwarder lies in organizing this main carriage. They have contracts with airlines, know the various flight connections, and can offer you the optimal route for your shipment.

Consider this scenario: you’re shipping pharmaceutical products that require constant refrigeration. The forwarder not only selects the fastest flight connection but also chooses an airline with the appropriate cooling infrastructure. At the same time, they organize all necessary customs formalities at both departure and arrival airports.

On-carriage: The Final Delivery

On-carriage brings your shipment from the arrival airport to the final destination. Imagine your electronic components have landed in Los Angeles but need to reach a production facility in Phoenix. On-carriage organizes this final transport step.

Depending on the destination country and region, various options are available: from standard truck delivery to special services like scheduled delivery or delivery with special security measures.

What Do Forwarders Specifically Offer?

A forwarder offers you four basic service variants that differ in which of the three transport phases the forwarder handles. This flexibility allows you to choose exactly the services that fit your logistics strategy and budget.

Port to Port: Main Carriage Only

In this variant, the forwarder handles exclusively the air transport between airports. You organize the pre-carriage to the departure airport and the on-carriage from the destination airport yourself.

This option is particularly suitable if you already have established transport solutions for pre- and on-carriage, or if you can handle these phases more cost-effectively yourself. For example, an automotive supplier from Munich could bring their parts to Frankfurt airport themselves and have their partner in Brazil organize the on-carriage from São Paulo.

Door to Port: Pre-carriage Plus Main Carriage

Here, the forwarder handles both pickup from your location and air transport to the destination airport. The recipient organizes pickup at the destination airport themselves.

This variant is suitable when you don’t want to handle the complex export processing and pre-carriage yourself, but the recipient has good local contacts for on-carriage.

Port to Door: Main Carriage Plus On-carriage

With this option, you bring your shipment to the departure airport yourself, and the forwarder handles the air transport and final delivery to the recipient. This makes sense when you want to organize the local pre-carriage yourself but ensure the shipment is professionally delivered to the end customer.

Especially for international shipments, the forwarder’s expertise in import processing and local delivery can be valuable.

Door to Door: The Complete Service

The most comprehensive variant covers all three transport phases. The forwarder picks up your shipment directly from your location and delivers it to the recipient’s doorstep. For you, this means maximum convenience and a single contact person for the entire transport process. At the same time, the forwarder assumes responsibility for all risks and coordination tasks along the complete transport chain.

The choice of the right variant depends on various factors: your internal resources, the complexity of the shipment, the destination countries, and not least your budget. Many shippers start with door-to-door services and later switch to modular solutions once they have gained more experience with international air freight transport.

Practical Considerations for Your Business

When selecting the appropriate service, you should consider various factors. Door-to-door service is often more convenient and can even be more cost-effective, as the forwarder can negotiate better rates with their partners than you as an individual customer.

However, there are situations where a modular solution makes more sense. Let’s say you already have a long-term contract with a regional transport service provider who regularly picks up shipments from your location. In this case, you could save costs by only handling the main carriage and on-carriage through the air freight forwarder.

Another aspect is control over the transport process. With door-to-door service, you have one central contact person, which simplifies communication. With modular solutions, you need to coordinate multiple service providers but may have more flexibility in adapting individual transport phases to your specific requirements. Coordinating multiple transport service providers involves effort that ties up your staff’s working time.

Ultimately, the best solution depends on your individual needs: the type of your products, the frequency of your shipments, your own resources, and of course your budget. Most forwarders are happy to advise you on selecting the optimal transport solution for your business.