Posted by SBRC on 4/1/2021 to
Questions and Answers
When having large orders or heavy items shipped, Airlines Shipping is the preferred method. There are many reasons for this, but primarily they are Speed and Price.
For example, if you are shipping a box of Live Rock from our location in Florida to Chicago, we can drop the package off at 7:30am and you are able to pick it up at Midway Airport by 11:30am for roughly the same cost it would have been to ship the exact same package via UPS Ground and that would have taken 4 days to be delivered.
The downside to this is that you will have to go to the airport and pick the package up and for some people that may be a long way away. We are about an hour away from our airport ourselves, so we understand it is not as convenient as shipping directly from our location to your home however we feel the speed of this shipment more than makes up for the inconvenience at least on our end. From speaking with our customers, I get the impression that most people imagine having to lug big heavy boxes through a busy airport full of people along with dealing with all the parking and traffic hassles that come with going to the airport. Luckily this is not the case with Air Cargo in most cities. In our case here in Tampa and from the feedback we have received from customers in other locations, the Air Cargo operations are normally away from the main passenger terminals and have separate parking lots directly in front of the buildings making it super simple in and out.
The speed of shipments is probably the number one reason to use airlines shipping, this is the secret fish stores have been using for years to get exoctic tropical fish and other pershiable cargo to and from locations around the world happy and healthy. It is not uncommon for people to receive our Live Rock less than 24 hours after it has been harvested off the seafloor saving a majority of the life that comes on the rock.
The cost of Airlines Shipping differs by what zone you are in, but as a general rule you can expect it to cost between $0.90 and $1.40 per pound with a 50 pound minimum.
Currently we are only using Southwest Airlines (https://www.swacargo.com) as our cargo shipper, below is a map of the current Southwest Cargo Locations. Please Contact Us if you have any questions concerning Airlines Shipping.