The following is a time saving condensation of about 20 Poor But Happy posters who have experience in shipping packages to Colombia. Postings are as recent as March, 2006. Accuracy of the following can change on a frequent basis, so you may want to do your own due diligence?

The use of UPS, FED EX, USPS or DHL, is generally not recommended. Posters claim the costs vary from high, to highway robbery. Quoted delivery times are seldom realized. Actual delivery times ranged from 6 weeks to never! Normally, these are very efficient delivery companies, but they loose control off the packages within all of Colombia. When companies do not have offices in Colombia, delivery is contracted out. Posters uniformly believe that lost, stolen, damaged or delayed packages occur most frequently within Colombia. USPS (U.S. Postal Service) contracts all deliveries to local Colombia companies, as they do not have offices within Colombia.

2. Posters have experienced good service and reasonable costs when using Servientrega . For those making more frequent shipments, posters suggest opening an account with either Tranexco or Jetbox. The annual account membership cost for these two companies is about $30. U.S. Delivery times for the above three companies have been between 3 and 7 days. Each of these companies is reported to assume responsibility for the entire delivery-portal to portal.

There was one positive report about the Mensaya office in London. Mensaya also has an office in Medellin, Colombia, multiple offices within the U.S., and one in Madrid. They use Servientrega for delivery within Colombia.

4. Air Express. One poster passed on info. that took place in 1996. Because of the time interval, and the fact that the airline has since been sold, you should do your own research regarding Air Express.

5. THE AIR FREIGHT TRANSPORT WEBSITES (1-4 listed below) APPEAR ONLY IN SPANISH!
Under commercial international aviation law, pilots must understand and speak english. It appears however, that the owners / managers of these so called: "International businesses" are more "comfortable" in not offering english, the international language, on their websites?

Why is this? Perhaps they don't realize how many english speaking persons maybe looking for their services. Eventually they will have to become bilingual in their communications in order to stay current in this rapidly changing growth industry, of  International air freight and freight forwarding. If you prefer english then maybe a friendly note to them will help them to make the transition.

Good luck.

Tranexco www.tranexco.com

Mensaya www.mensaya.com

Jetbox www.jetbox.com

Servientrega  www.servientrega.com

Poor But Happy  www.poorbuthappy.com