A counter-to-counter shipment on a passenger airline is a thing of the past (at least from my experiences going directly to the passenger airlines). After Sept 11 the FAA has required that passenger airlines only accept shipments from "known shippers" (unless this has changed in the last 14 months). What does this mean? You need to setup an account with the airline (may of them will setup the account and still be able to bill to a credit card). You also need to become a "known shipper" by having their courier/employee visit your location and verify that you are a "known shipper". Once this occurs you can do passenger airline counter-to-counter shipments at will. Setup time takes 7-10 days from what I remember. If anybody has counter-to-counter on their disaster recovery plans you may want to get setup as a "known shipper". I went through the process with United's Cargo division http://www.unitedcargo.com. I used them as a backup to America West Airlines as I am located in Phoenix, AZ. -Andy --- "Robert E. Seastrom" <rs@seastrom.com> wrote:
"N. Richard Solis" <nrsolis@aol.net> writes:
FedEx will be your best bet. Trust me.
FedEx Heavy = "pay a surcharge for heavy boxes, get it moved by a 120 pound delivery person with a handtruck rather than a pallet jack or other appropriate freight handling equipment... and dropped off the truck". My experience is a 40% damage rate when shipping Cisco 7507 and 7513 routers via FedEx Heavy. Here are some pictures from back when I was at AboveNet: http://www.seastrom.com/fedex/
You COULD do a counter to counter shipment via an airline cargo desk. That MIGHT be cheaper but you will still have to transport it from your spot to their pickup and back again on the other side.
Counter-to-counter is the *last* way you would want to ship that sort of thing (handled as luggage on a flight, beat to hell by baggage handlers, and you get to retrieve it from baggage claim in an airport and schlep it all the way to your car). Far better (if you have access to trucks on both ends) is to ship it air freight. As you enter your favorite airport, follow the signs to Air Cargo, not the signs to the passenger terminal. When you find a place with a lot of places for 18-wheelers to back up to loading docks, and relatively few places for cars to park, you've found the right place. Matthew doesn't mention specific terminus points for the shipment, but based on whois information I'll make a wild guess that NYC is one end. JFK appears to be the "big" United installation (vs LGA and EWR), per info on www.unitedcargo.com - I tend to prefer them because of their long hours for pickup and delivery at IAD, which makes life convenient for me. :)
If you need door-to-door service, there are numerous air freight forwarders who can handle palletized equipment and move it around the country/world in a timely fashion (and really, if you're talking about 300+ pounds of rackmount equipment, that's how you want to move it anyway).
Two companies that I've used and been quite happy with the results are Cavalier International and Eagle Global Logistics. You may recognize Eagle's logo from stickers on previous shipments that you've gotten from major manufacturers who have stuff manufactured in the Far East. The Pros Know.
http://www.eaglegl.com/ http://www.cavalier-intl.com/
---Rob