OBC ONE • On Board Courier services + hand carry

This is why 100% certainty doesn’t exist in time-critical logistics. https://lnkd.in/e4znxnwg Last week, one of our team members experienced something unusual while traveling privately. A passenger smoked on board, became aggressive, and had to be removed from the aircraft. The result: a delay of roughly one hour before the flight could depart. Situations like this are rare but they do happen. And they highlight an important truth about time-critical logistics: Not everything is controllable. The same kind of disruption can occur during an OBC/hand carry mission. No planning, no experience, and no process can fully eliminate every external risk. What does make the difference is preparation. In OBC/hand carry logistics, the focus is never on hoping that nothing goes wrong. It’s about building setups with buffer, alternatives, and clear contingency plans. So when something unexpected happens, the shipment is protected. Flights may be delayed. Passengers may cause disruptions. Airports may slow down. Our job is to make sure that these situations have as little impact as possible on the shipment and never put it at risk. There is no such thing as 100% certainty in time-critical logistics. But there is a clear difference between reacting to problems and being prepared for them.

OBC/hand carry isn't just hand luggage. Let's talk checked baggage. When people think about OBC/hand carry, they usually picture a courier with a small bag in the cabin. That's only part of the story. Some of the largest OBC shipments move as checked luggage - and that's where things get really interesting. Yes, you can move tons via OBC. 2,000 kg are possible - not in one piece, but split into many compliant bags. And with the right airline, the scale can be surprising. ✈️ Example: On certain aircraft, airlines like Lufthansa allow up to 99 checked bags per ticket. That changes everything for time-critical shipments. Why checked luggage opens new possibilities ✔️ Volume at speed Checked baggage allows you to move far more volume than cabin baggage - without switching to air freight processes. ✔️ Still faster than air freight No warehouses. No air freight backlogs. Passenger customs, direct handover, and immediate onward transport. ✔️ Perfect for line-stop scenarios Automotive, aerospace, industrial spare parts - when size matters, checked baggage makes OBC scalable. But it's not without risks Checked luggage requires real expertise. Weight limits per piece. Dimension limits. Airline-specific bag caps. Pricing models (weight vs. piece concept). Customs coordination. Get any of these wrong, and a "brilliant" solution collapses at check-in. That's why checked-luggage OBC is not about throwing boxes on a flight - it's about planning, airline knowledge, and compliance. OBC/hand carry isn't small by definition. It's flexible by design. Hand luggage offers maximum control. Checked luggage unlocks scale. Knowing when to use which - and how to execute it properly - is what turns OBC from a niche option into a powerful tool for freight forwarders. If you want to know more about baggage restrictions in OBC/hand carry and what's possible and what isn't, check out my article and feel free to reach out to me! https://lnkd.in/d5kq3WE2

Oops… we did it again. Sorry for blocking the baggage check-in. 😅 Here the challenge was volume! 260 boxes, 15 m³, around 2000 kg and 4 OBCs. This was a different OBC/hand carry mission from BKK to North America. And yes, it worked. This is the part many people still underestimate about on board courier logistics. OBC is not always one courier with one small box. Sometimes it is a full operational setup with multiple couriers, dozens or hundreds of pieces, coordinated baggage handling, airline checks, routing, customs planning and constant updates from start to finish. At that size, the flight is only one part of the job... And we know exactly what to do.

How far can 5 hours take your shipment? If you hand over a shipment and 5 hours go by… the difference between transport modes couldn’t be bigger. 🚛 Road: still stuck somewhere in traffic. ✈ Air freight: paperwork, handling, and waiting for freight capacity on the next passenger flight. 👨✈ OBC / hand carry: already door to door in Portugal from Germany. That’s the power of OBC: - No long pre- or post-carriage. - No waiting in depots. - Just a courier, a flight, and a direct handover. If the shipment is shipped as airfreight it would need to make the LAT (Latest Acceptance Time) and usually that requires way more time than having an OBC catching the flight. But here’s the difference: OBC shipments leave the airport almost immediately - often within 40 minutes after touchdown in the EU, a driver already has the package and is on the road for the last mile. Air freight may have made the flight too, but after landing it faces hours of processing before the last mile can even begin. That’s why, even if both share the same plane, the OBC shipment is already halfway to its destination while air freight is still waiting to be released. Time-critical logistics isn’t about planes. It’s about how fast you get moving.

This is exactly why I love time-critical logistics. Sometimes OBC/hand carry is not about finding the next flight, sometimes it is about realizing that the flight is not the answer. Because of a typhoon in China, moving this shipment by air was no longer an option. So we changed the plan. Not to Plan B. More like Plan C or D. The shipment is now moving by high-speed train 🚄 You can prepare everything. You can plan the route. You can check the flights. You can build the perfect setup. And then weather says: "Nope." 😅 That is when the real work starts. And when the shipment is finally completed, after all the replanning, rerouting and problem-solving, it feels great.

Now also in English: The Galileo report about our OBC/hand carry mission is now online. Two weeks ago the report about my OBC emergency shipment from Germany to Mexico aired on TV. The report gives a rare look behind the scenes of on board courier logistics: what happens before the courier boards, how much coordination is involved, and why OBC is much more than “someone flying with a package”. What was special for this shipment: The shipment was temperature controlled and needed to stay between 2° - 8°C all time. Also a X-ray check was not possible, so the shipment had to be registered in advance for a special security screening, including a swab test. For us, it was great to see OBC/hand carry logistics explained to a wider audience. Because most people only see the simple version: Someone gets on a plane with a package. But behind it, there is routing, documentation, customs, timing, responsibility and a lot of calm decision-making under pressure. In this case, we delivered the shipment in under 24 hours and handed it over to the doctors in Mexico City. And if you missed it live when it aired, here’s your chance to catch up and watch it now, also in English (set subtitles to English and/or audio track to English): https://lnkd.in/eS274JGZ A big thank you to the Galileo/ProSieben team for capturing this mission and showing a part of logistics that usually stays behind the scenes.