Bruce:

Before I retired at the end of 2013, I frequently flew between Alaska (usually Nome) and Magadan as part of my job, which was to deliver newly manufactured Canadian aircraft to customers in Asia and the South Pacific.

At that time (I suspect nothing has changed since then), there was NO air service of any kind between far Eastern Russia and Alaska. For sure, there was no air service between Magadan & Alaska.

At one time, many many years ago, there was an infrequent scheduled service between Magadan and Alaska, but it was shut down due to lack of demand - the operator could not make any money on it.

The cost of chartering is out of this world. Once, I had to charter a small aircraft (a King Air) to deliver a critical aircraft part from Nome to Anadyr, and it cost me $15,000 USD to do that.

So, the short answer is I think you have no hope at all of finding any kind of air service that will deliver you from North America to Magadan. You might be able to find scheduled service from "somewhere" that will take you to Vladivostok, but it is unlikely that there is scheduled air service from anywhere in North America directly to Vladivostok.

The other thing you need to be aware of is that unless you are willing to break the motorcycle down into very small pieces, a motorcycle can only be shipped on a wide-body (twin aisle) aircraft, such as a 767, A330, etc. These aircraft have sufficient height in the underfloor cargo area to accept a motorcycle. Narrow-body (single aisle) aircraft such as B737, A320, etc. only have about 1 meter (1 yard) of height in the underfloor cargo area. Plus, cargo is loaded by hand (not by mechanized pallet handlers) on narrow-body aircraft, which limits the maximum weight of any individual crate.

Michael

Hi Michael, thank you for the advice. I really appreciate it.

I have changed my plans and will ship my bike to Vancouver to commence my trip. I stupidly thought that if Ewan and Charlie did it, I must be able to. But then they wouldn't flinch at the $15K USD to charter a flight. I feel like a dill.

Thanks again for your help.

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I'm only a new member so I can't direct message just yet,

I assume you are doing the London-Magadan section with Compass? I too am doing the same trip and plan to do the Alaska/Newyork section afterwords. Getting the bike across being the biggest issue. If there was a charter option maybe splitting costs makes it doable, bike rental in the US from my limited searching seems quite expensive and very restrictive location wise.

Liam

Liam:

See my post #10 above.

It cost my company $15,000 US to charter a small aircraft to carry a 25 pound aircraft part from Nome to Anadyr (that's about 1/10th the distance of Magadan to Anchorage).

Trust me, it would be much cheaper for you to abandon your motorcycles in Russia and buy new ones in Alaska than it would be to charter an aircraft to move the two motorcycles between Magadan & Anchorage.

Michael