My IAATC card. All that's left of the good old days.
It was once billed as one of the travel industry’s “best kept secrets” – though it was hardly one fanatically guarded by an elite few possessed of its knowledge. It wasn’t something covetously kept from the masses, the exclusive possession of a clandestine syndicate, access to which was more a case of who you knew than what you knew. In fact, it was barely a secret at all. It was more an aspect of travel that relatively few people were aware of, or if they were, made little use of.
Travel couriers, it was said, could travel the world for free. Or at least for vastly discounted prices. New York, Sydney, Bangkok, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Chicago, Buenos Aires and Johannesburg were just some of the hubs of international commerce to which air couriers could fly and to which courier companies worldwide were sending ordinary travellers in order that the cargo in their charge would arrive at its destination safely. All the courier was require to do was to carry a package containing the documents pertaining to the cargo in question from one airport to the other and often, but not always, agree to give up their luggage allowance to said cargo. Maybe there would be restrictions on your length of stay and your travel dates, but as you would be aware of these restrictions beforehand, there were always plenty more flights and plenty more courier companies to choose from. It was simply a case of ringing round in search of the next flight to whichever destination took your fancy.
Indeed, in the early days of the industry, the whole process had something distinctly intrepid about it. A select band of couriers were going about their daily business waiting for the call that would see them spring into action, assume their privileged courier role and, before the day was out, be onboard a flight to the other side of the world clutching that envelop full of documents, simply for the love of (heavily discounted) travel.
This may well have been the case before word got round and the courier companies began edging up the prices of these little known wonders of budget air travel, but by the time I learned of the travel industry’s so-called best kept secret in 2003, my return flight to New York would set me back £150 at a time when you could expect to pick up a similar return flight for between £175 and £200 without too much of a problem. When I more recently attempted to find out if flying as a courier was still a viable option, I discovered to my disappointment (but not exactly my surprise) that the courier flight – so long a mainstay of intrepid budget air travel – had died a rather slow and painful death.
As The Life of Adventure tells us:
“The biggest nail in the coffin was that, unlike the late 1990s and early 2000s, air cargo companies now have much larger fleets and more sophisticated handling services that work with customs agencies to speed deliveries.
[Furthermore], because of technological advancement, many documents can now be seamlessly routed via the internet [while] airfare competition has become more intense in recent years. With dozens of discount airfare sites online competing for your business, the informed buyer can get a killer deal without having to deal with all the drawbacks associated with courier travel. All of these elements combined have led to the inevitable demise of what was once a great opportunity for the budget traveller.”
There are a minimal number of courier flights still flying. From London, flights still travel to Tokyo (as of Jan 2009). But all of the other exotic destinations mentioned above have apparently been discontinued.
Several sites that specialise (or used to specialise) in keeping members informed of all things courier flight-related and providing budding courier fliers with the numbers and addresses of courier companies also still exist. They usually charge a small yearly membership fee if, indeed, they are still accepting new members, but with the state of the courier flight situation at present, it seems such memberships would very likely not be worth the fees that are charged. For my New York trip I signed up with the International Association of Air Travel Couriers. But, as is the case with most similar sites, they seem no longer to be operating as they once were. Best instead to ring the BA Travel Shop or the relevant department of any other airline still running courier flights in order to check the current state of play. Though I’ve just discovered that the BA Travel Shop does not exist anymore. I can only regrettably conclude, therefore, that courier travel is well and truly dead and buried.
Ticket Receipt and Confirmation for my 2003 New York Courier Trip
