Sorry, I don´t have any exact answers to what you were looking for... but first of all, if you´re talking about real seafreight (not just “hitching a ride” on some smaller boat, for example), then I doubt airfreight is actually gonna cost you 4 times more than seafreight. Seafreight usually gets a lot cheaper than airfreight only, when your shipping distance is really long. Even then I doubt by sea would cost only 25% of what the same shipping would cost by air.

I haven´t shipped by sea to Chennai, but I have shipped by air out of Chennai in January 2008.... this is just my gut feeling, but destination charges at the seaport could bring a few surprises. And they do love their bureaucracy in India! Also when I was searching for options out of Chennai, I heard, that there had been some ´slow-down´ strikes at the seaport, and it meant nobody had a clue, if shipping by sea to Thailand would have taken two weeks, or six weeks. Even the quotes that I got were roughly the same by air and by sea – that actually made my decision very easy!

It is not exact science, but usually the shorter the distance, the clearer the benefits of using airfreight. Just generally seems to create less headache at both ends, although exceptions are always possible.

Too bad that there´s no ferry connection between India and Sri Lanka... (and was there not a plan to re-open such a service not a long time ago, wonder what happened to that)??

Thank you for your replies (...I haven't seen them until now..)

I found out the service charges in Chennai (in indian rupees)

DIRECT CONSIGNEE

DO CHARGES 3500.00 PER HBL
DOC CHARGES 1250.00 PER HBL
LCL CHARGES 800.00 PER W/M
TRANSPORTATION CHARGES 650.00 PER W/M
DESTUFFING CHARGES 825.00 PER W/M
DG SURCHARGES $150.00 PER HBL(FOR DG CARGO)
PORT HANDLING CHARGES $50.00 PER HBL(FOR PERSONAL EFFECTS)
CDS CHARGES – AT ACTUAL (at the time of delivery)
SERVICE TAX - 12.36% ON TOTAL AMOUNT


They quoted me the airfreight to be around 700$ (2 $/kg) while the ocean freight around 200$ (15$/cbm), so even considering the destination charges the sea freight seems cheaper...

I shipped from Mumbai to Colombo with them and we ended up with 1 month and a half delay, the key of the bike lost (found weeks later lost inside the engine), a panier dented and 30km more on the bike.



Yes, there was a plan of re-opening the ferry service and we even went to check at TalaiMannar but the road that goes to of the peninsula ends agains a green gate (Army I guess), nothing else there and nobody know nothing.

Could you please pm a contact of the agency you used when you shipped out of Chennai?

I don't know if they are cheating me with this quotes, but what to do...


By the way:
If anybody needs a Crate in Chennai at the beginning of January pm me!

__________________
Him + Her + The Bike = 300kg. Everything else is Fleeting
**http://www.300kg.eu**

I´ve sent you PM (but note, that my shipping was a long time ago, so that freight agent might not even exist any more!)


Also that quote by sea, sorry I´m really bad in math, but including those destination charges, how much does it all add up to then (the total sum I mean)?