Avoid Traps For Oversized Air Freight To Middle East｜Not Every Agent Can Get Long Pallet Space

Last Saturday afternoon, Faiz, who works in building materials, contacted me. He told me his molds had no booking space with his freight forwarder for days. The forwarder just kept telling him to wait. He asked if we could ship the goods.
Faiz runs an aluminum profile processing business in Dubai. He needed to send 4 sets of aluminum extrusion molds from Shenzhen to Dubai. Each box weighs over 100 kg, and the packed outer box is more than 3 meters long. His factory waited for the molds to start production and the buyer pushed him every day. The original plan was 5 days delivery to Dubai.
He checked five or six freight forwarders and got many different prices. He picked the cheapest one. That forwarder posted attractive words on social media: fast air freight to Middle East, no extra cost for oversized cargo, and promised delivery in 5 days for sure.
Faiz sent the goods to their warehouse on Monday. The forwarder said they would arrange pallet space. Actually, this forwarder just looked for temporary agents on the market for oversized pallet space. They spent two days and found no good option. Some options were too expensive, and some had very long transit time. The goods were stuck in their warehouse.
Faiz got worried and visited the warehouse. It was on the first floor of a residential building. Only 3 to 5 people worked there. Goods were piled everywhere with little space to walk. The forwarder still asked him to wait.
Faiz decided not to wait any longer and lost trust in that agent. I told Faiz, for normal cargo, almost any freight forwarder can handle it easily. But his cargo is oversized. Standard pallets cannot take it. He needs to apply for long pallets, and not every forwarder can finish this quickly.
We have rich experience with oversized cargo. We have shipped carpets of 4-5 meters, big glass products, and 20 tons of large engineering goods for the DWC airport expansion project.
Besides, only strong freight forwarders can take such oversized shipments, not small teams. Normally, the team should have at least 40 to 50 staff. To be honest, DL is on the 8th floor, Block B, Rongde Times Square. The whole 1800 ㎡ floor belongs to our company. We have nearly 100 employees. For shipping from china to uae, we are a top freight forwarder.
I showed Faiz our workplace by video and talked about details. He quickly knew he found a real expert. On Saturday afternoon, he sent the 4 wooden boxes to our Longgang warehouse and asked us to arrange the shipment urgently.
After goods arrived, we re-measured them. Most boxes were just over 3 meters, which Faiz agreed. One box had an extra wooden support sticking out at the bottom. We measured it at 3.12 meters. The uneven outer box would make special approval hard for oversized cargo.
The sticking part was only a support wood, not part of the mold itself. That was easy to fix. Our warehouse team removed the extra wood overnight. We fitted heavy-duty corner protectors and tightened steel straps on both sides. We rechecked the size and made the package neat.
We sent updated size, weight and package photos to the airline ground agent. We applied for special approval and got it approved smoothly.