Shipping Vladivostok-Bangkok, air? sea?
 

Hallo everybody,
I plan a motorcycle trip from Germany to Australia, for this trip I need a transport from Vladivostok to Bangkok, I heard seafreight needs about 4-6 weeks?? long time, do someone know it`s also possible by airfreight?? have someone a idea about the costs? is it better, easier, cheaper to use the distination Vietnam? I would be happy if someone has an idea.
regards
Harald

I suggest you have a look at airline schedules, and see if there is an air carrier operating service between Vladivostok and Thailand using wide-body (twin aisle) aircraft.

It's pretty easy to ship a motorcycle by air in the belly of a wide-body aircraft - you just ride into a container, and ride it off at the other end. No crating, disassembly, fluid draining, etc. required.

I've flown into Vlad many times (as a pilot) before I retired, and it's a big airport with lots of service to other Asian cities - particularly to warm locations.

Although air freight might sound expensive if you have not used it before, it is competitive with sea freight, primarily because you don't encounter the expenses associated with crating, longshoring, port charges, etc. that often add up to double the price of sea freight.

Michael

Hello

Pre-covid:

Yuri Melnikov, General Manager Links, Ltd.
89 Svetlanskaya str.,
office 312, 690001,
Vladivostok, Russia.
Tel/fax: +7(423)222-15-78 Tel: +7(423)222-08-87
Mobile: +7 902 5243447
ymelnik@links-ltd.com

Many shipped by air to Korea, then ferry to russia.
https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/get-ready/shipments

Post-covid:
Nobody knows when russia opens the border and what routes are available then.
Way too early for any planning.

sushi

Definitely first thing to remember is that Russia does not allow tourists over land borders during covid, and no idea when that will change.

According to https://www.flightconnections.com/fl...ladivostok-vvo, both S7 and Ural Airlines have *seasonal* (probably charter) flights from VVO to Bangkok/Phuket, but whether they will take a bike as cargo is an open question. Yuri Melnikov is still the guy with the best chance to give you a useful answer about freight.

Vietnam is both completely locked down, AND was always very difficult to get a foreign-plated vehicle into. The only foreign plates I saw inside the country were Cambodia/Laos (on scheduled buses) and China (close to the border). I know tour groups from Thailand have gotten across with special arrangements... but generally, expect it to be not reasonably possible.

Honestly, if I was in that position (ignoring Covid), I would put my bike on a boat to Bangkok/wherever, and in the meantime grab a flight to Korea or Japan to sightsee as a pedestrian, and/or fly to Vietnam and rent/buy a small local bike to see the country. And not worry about having my butt in my bike's seat for every kilometer of the journey.

Not anymore. Welcome to the new world of being charged for every millimeter you use. A world where you 150kg biker can weigh 1600kg when it comes to charges. Forget riding into a can, forget paying for your bikes volumetric weight.

Be prepared for EXTREMELY expensive outcomes. You may find that sea freight will be very expensive and fraught with delays. Even AFTER you think you have a confirmed booking and schedule things can change greatly. Sea freight is also very expensive at this time and it is possible that shippers will reject your bike for LCL and deem it critical cargo. Air, it is a completely different world now. You can be charged for the size/weight of the ULD used to hold your bike. Most air cargo space is very limited so be prepared to pay for every mm you dont use but they could have.

This too shall pass.

Right now, due to a reduction in flights due to COVID, there is a lack of excess volumetric capacity in the belly of aircraft that are still operating. This has resulted in significant increases in the price of air freight. The same thing has happened with sea freight, although for different reasons.

Eventually, when airline schedules get back to normal (meaning, when we get back to the same or greater number of daily flights as operated pre-pandemic), opportunities will again arise to take advantage of excess cubic space in the belly of wide-body aircraft, and prices will return to pre-pandemic levels.

**********

As an aside, if air carriers are operating wide body aircraft on routes from Vladivostok to sun destinations in Asia, chances are far better than average that there will be excess cargo space available - simply because these aircraft are usually full of passengers and their baggage, but there is not much demand for export cargo from Vladivostok to Asia. So there might be some opportunity on the southbound flights. I doubt, though, that there will be any opportunity on the return flights to Vlad.

Michael

Yes I agree this will pass once normalisation of global air traffic resumes. At this point in time and with the current cartel of international sea freight companies holding the world to ransom this will take some time, years maybe. Currently there is no such thing as excess space so be prepared to learn about Pivot Weight the hard way unfortunately.

At the risk of entirely hijacking the thread...

The key word here is "wide-body", and that may not come back, certainly not in the same volume as before. That VVO-BKK flight I mentioned above? Looked it up, and S7 does it with an A320 NEO, which means that a)you probably can't get a ULD in there, and b)even if you could, that aircraft's belly is full of its passengers' luggage.

This is a clear trend in global aviation: airlines were already looking to start operating narrow-body aircraft on transoceanic/transcontinental routes, new planes like the A321 LR/XLR make it viable to do so, and airlines are definitely taking the opportunity with covid to swap out their legacy fleets for new, fuel-efficient, usually smaller airplanes.

Just did a week in Tenerife, and the charter was 7 hours each way on an A320, which is near-as-makes-no-difference to a flight from Western Europe to Eastern North America, or Helsinki/Istanbul to major Asian destinations. It was... not great, but not terrible - certainly I would do it again if the price was competitive. So will most other travellers. Wide-body aircraft in general will not exactly go away entirely, but will most likely stay on only the busiest routes - and finding a good opportunity to put a bike on a plane is definitely going to get harder.

Not to be pedantic, but single-aisle (narrow-body) aircraft do use ULDs (Unit Load Devices) - but unfortunately, they can't fit ULDs that are tall enough to accept a motorcycle that has not been disassembled. Your point is valid, though.

Personally, I think that we will see the return of wide-body aircraft on routes they previously operated on, simply because the economics are so attractive for the airlines. It's far more profitable to run 2 wide-body rotations on a route than to run 3 or 4 single-aisle rotations, and the higher profit comes despite ticket prices being lower when wide-bodies are used.

Single-aisle aircraft predominate on 'thin' routes with little demand, or when higher prices can be charged to business travelers who demand frequency on routes. Once this virus problem passes, demand will increase on routes that are currently thin, and we'll see the wide-bodies return.

The most attractive prices for motorcycle shipping by air are (were?) found on leisure routes when all the seats were full, passengers were restricted to minimum baggage allowances (due to cheap seats), and as a result, there was excess cubic space available down in the basement, but not a lot of excess payload (weight) available. This creates a situation where you can load a LD6 with a motorcycle in it (total weight about 1,000 pounds) because you have the space, but you can't load a LD6 with a normal load of 6,000 pounds because you don't have the payload capacity.

TL;DR: Once air travel gets back to normal, attractive motorcycle air freight rates will return.

Michael

Hello

Don't wont to disturb your discussion about wide body planes. If you look at the database above, there is no entry about air freight. Either Yuri didn't know of that trick or it was not possible at Vladivostok.

sushi

I am presuming that Yuri had not considered air freight as a way of moving his motorcycle. I've flown into Vladivostok many times (during my working career as a pilot) and it is a big airport. Prior to the COVID pandemic, there were a lot of aircraft moving in and out of there every day. Not as busy as (for example) Zurich, but probably just as many daily movements as Geneva.

Michael

Hello

Maybe you shoud tell him, might be some beerin it for you. :rofl:

When I searched this area in 2013 on my RTW, airfreight never came up in any trip reports I found.

If it's a big enough airport, aren't there any freight planes unloading goods?
What is loaded in that free space, russia's main export goods (oil and malware) probably not, so what?
Maybe motorbikes in general arn't allowed?

sushi

There is no such thing as free space these days mate. Welcome to a world where you pay for space you dont use.

Sushi:

Respectfully, I think you are missing the point because you have not read previous posts carefully.

Even in good times, it's unlikely that anyone will find great deals shipping motorcycles on cargo aircraft. If cargo only aircraft are operating on a route, it's because there's enough cargo business to fill those aircraft at regular cargo rates. There may be the very rare backhaul route that doesn't generate much business (e.g. Anchorage to Korea), but that's rare, and the cargo forwarders generally don't go out and solicit one-off shipments such as motorcycles.

Where you will find good deals to be had is on passenger wide-body aircraft that are operating with full seats on routes that don't generate much cargo business. Vladivostok to Asian tourist destinations is a great example of this (though not in the other direction, Asia to Vladivostok). The planes are full of people & baggage, but baggage is pretty dense and doesn't occupy all the space in the belly. The plane is close to MTOW (maximum take-off weight), but has lots of cubic space available. All that space can't be sold for regular high-density cargo, though, because of payload limitations.

You need a wide-body because that's the only size of aircraft that will accept a fully assembled motorcycle in a LD6. You need full seats because that, in combination with a fairly long route, implies minimal additional payload (excess weight that can be carried) available on the aircraft. You need a route that has low demand for cargo because that implies empty space in the belly. If you have that combination, then you can offer very attractive prices to put a motorcycle inside an empty ULD that needs to be repatriated - even if empty - on that flight. To an airline, that's "money for nothing".

I've shipped my motorcycle back and forth across continents many times in the past 20 years. I've also worked in the aviation industry for 30+ years. Trust me, I know how the game works.

Michael