Put The "ship" In Shipping?

[DAP]

Perhaps it is time to think about using a boat to get the parts to England.
At the very least it could put the Pandora on a predictable time frame, even if it is slow.
That volcano could quit tomorrow, or continue for years.

 

[Night]

From what I understood the parts heading from the US to England were already in air before the volcano erupted, does anyone know if they made it?

 

[Alpha2]

A couple of airlines are starting to push to get back out there. They've been doing test flights to prove it's safe to fly again.

 

[craigix]

From what I understood the parts heading from the US to England were already in air before the volcano erupted, did they make it?

I thought they were on a direct flight from Dallas to UK, but it seems not.

 

[Alpha2]

Nobody mentioned there'd be a 236 hour layover in chicago! Where's my luggage?

 

[Fishbong]

In the worst case, they could fly the parts to France and get them to the UK on a truck.

*humming the Coca Cola christmas song...*

 

[paddy]

ohh nevermind.

 

[Sugar_Kane]

While stocks last: Free volcanic dust for every first batcher

 

[nik166]

In the worst case, they could fly the parts to France and get them to the UK on a truck.

for now, only the most southern airports of france remain open, bordeaux is closed for now till tomorrow 8am "or more" , nice also i think, toulouse still open ....

 

[Dunny]

Was in the south of England last week, and on... Would have been Friday, we got up and went outside. Was weird, being in a port town - that was usually struggling for passengers - where there were shitloads of people waiting for crossings! Anyhow, I digress - we went outside and aside from the odd view of the sky (slightly brown to the north with very strong sunlight, and no contrails or aircraft in sight!) the other oddity was the car, and all the cars parked near us - all coated in a very fine brown powder which when you ran your fingers through it turned dirty black.

I'm assuming that's the ash coming down. Was a sod to get rid of, I was washing the car most of the morning - and every time I went in for half an hour, I'd come back out to a fresh coating. Not seen anything like that around here in the north, but there is some ash lying around - just not as much.

D.

 

[QBJECT]

Perhaps it is time to think about using a boat to get the parts to England.
At the very least it could put the Pandora on a predictable time frame, even if it is slow.
That volcano could quit tomorrow, or continue for years.

What you are suggesting is a gamble that could have the community after the OPT with torches and pitchforks, and is not nearly as predictable as you think.

If they get the shipment(s) loaded on a boat and UK airspace is reopened while it's still en route, people on these forums are going to chew their own knuckles off in frustration. If you think the mold factory gave a string of contradictory answers about due dates, you ain't seen nothin' until you've messed with overseas shipping by container.

I know this far more intimately than I'd like. My employer imports raw material from overseas in small batches and custom work is frequently on hold until the next shipment shows up. Custom work means special orders, means customers with both a lot of money and a lot of emotional investment in the process. A good portion of my workweek is spent on the phone, calming angry customers down because unpredictable weather, logistics, trucking, or government delays messed up their timeframe. I hate it and wouldn't wish either end of those conversations on anyone.

In short, if you love the ETA rollercoaster we've been on, by all means put it on a ship. UPS, on the other hand, is one of the best ways to get things from place to place. If the parts are in their hands, the status information delivered to OPT will be unequivocally superior in both quality and reliability. Period.

 

[quadomatic]

Nice answer QBJECT

So in short, please don't put the stuff on a boat.

 

[fusion_power]

From what I understood the parts heading from the US to England were already in air before the volcano erupted, did they make it?

I thought they were on a direct flight from Dallas to UK, but it seems not.

Sounds like in all the days, since the packages were sent out of the US Factory and before the Volcano stopped the whole Air-traffic over europe, these Packages never leaved USA? I thought this happens faster Imagine you are a huge Company and you need Millions of Parts within a few days and this not only once. I think with that speed it would take ages until everything arrives.
Od do they use other "secret" routes that lead directly to Europe? :unsure:

 

[Zotty]

I thought they were on a direct flight from Dallas to UK, but it seems not.

Am I interpreting you correctly when I say you don't know where the package is at the moment? If not, ignore this message.
Last time I used UPS it had a nice track and trace number which allowed me to see exactly which city the package was in, including where it has been. I would assume it's the same with this shipment.

 

[Balzac2m]

In short, if you love the ETA rollercoaster we've been on, by all means put it on a ship. UPS, on the other hand, is one of the best ways to get things from place to place. If the parts are in their hands, the status information delivered to OPT will be unequivocally superior in both quality and reliability. Period.

Spot-On. Don't ship them by ship. An uncle of mine is captain at hapag lloyd and everything he told me about his profession supports qbject's posting.

 

[QBJECT]

In short, if you love the ETA rollercoaster we've been on, by all means put it on a ship. UPS, on the other hand, is one of the best ways to get things from place to place. If the parts are in their hands, the status information delivered to OPT will be unequivocally superior in both quality and reliability. Period.

Spot-On. Don't ship them by ship. An uncle of mine is captain at hapag lloyd and everything he told me about his profession supports qbject's posting.

That makes my point even better, as (if I'm not mistaken) Hapag-Lloyd actually handles trucking on both ends as well as the sea voyage itself, sort of like UPS for containers. Their way of doing things is an enormous benefit to their customers and is not the norm. I'm assuming that crates of Pandora parts would be shipped LCL ("Less than Container Load") which means they'd be loaded with a lot of other people's goods into the container, and would have to be broken out again at the port before being loaded onto a truck. This adds layers and layers of handling and red tape, and many more opportunities for damage and/or theft (which, ugh, does happen). If things are a mess for H-L, things will be much worse the usual way.

P.S. I don't mean to suggest that UPS is immune to problems, or that they can magically overcome shipping issues that are stonewalling other shippers. My experience is just that they understand better than most the good business engendered by accountability to their customers. Aside from actual, functional Pandoras in-hand, I think that accountability (or at least accuracy) is what we all, including OPT, want right now.

 

[Alpha2]

I would imagine it's not up to him to not use a ship. The company has them in their possession and they're responsible for shipping in a timely manner, that's their business, I'm sure they know what they're doing.

 

[WizardStan]

Am I interpreting you correctly when I say you don't know where the package is at the moment? If not, ignore this message.
Last time I used UPS it had a nice track and trace number which allowed me to see exactly which city the package was in, including where it has been. I would assume it's the same with this shipment.

Last time you used UPS, was there a volcano going off grounding planes and forcing couriers to find temporary storage for the things they weren't able to deliver on time?
Assumption nullified!

 

[crackerjacker]

I just checked, UPS is still using tracking numbers, and allowing people to track their shipments.

Assumption Un-Nullified. In fact, it's confirmed.

 

[WizardStan]

I just checked, UPS is still using tracking numbers, and allowing people to track their shipments.

Assumption Un-Nullified. In fact, it's confirmed.

There is a volcano currently spewing stuff into the air making it difficult for them to put things where they belong. What use is a tracking number in a situation where they are too busy finding places to put stuff to actually update said tracking number?
Assumption remains exactly where I put it.