Hong Kong is an international business hub and a famous shopping heaven converging worldwide travelers all year round. Very often only when travelers depart from the Hong Kong Airport, they find themselves with excessive baggage; so is there any alternative besides using the excess baggage service of their airline? The answer is yes! There is the Unaccompanied Baggage Limited (UBL) located at the Hong Kong International Airport which helps these air passengers to dispatch their excessive baggage to overseas at a more economic price.
Established in 1978, the UBL is a non-profit making, wholly-owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding Agents (HAFFA). It is also the only authorised company at the Hong Kong Chep Lap Kok Airport to provide this kind of convenient service to travelers.
Manager of the UBL, David Yu, recalls those days the Civil Aviation Department handled many complaints from travelers when the UBL was not yet incorporated.
“In those days if air passengers didn’t want to pay the expensive excess baggage charges claimed by the airline which they were taking, they had to send their baggage to the air cargo terminal located at other end of the Kai Tak Airport at that time. The journey was rather time-consuming and at times some travelers even missed their flight,” says Yu.
In other cases, some travelers really could not afford to pay the high excess baggage fees but were stuck with no choice, so they complained to the Civil Aviation Department.
Eventually, the HAFFA proposed to the Civil Aviation Department to establish the UBL as part of the Hong Kong Airport’s facilities, and its income is used to support the promotional activities of the HAFFA.
“The HAFFA is formally known as the Association of Hong Kong Air Freight Forwarding Agents which was a non-profit making organisation first founded in 1966 to promote, protect and develop the carriage of goods. Thus the establishment of the UBL not only introduces a more economic and efficient way to help passengers with excess baggage, but also enhances Hong Kong’s air cargo services and its image as the regional logistics hub,” elaborates Yu.
Today, passengers just need to present their passports and air tickets as reference and process their excess baggage at the UBL before they depart. Usually passengers pay about one-third less than the amount they need to pay to their airline.
“Baggage will be forwarded as air cargo, and charges is calculated according to the International Air Transport Association rates by the actual weight or volume weight (whichever is higher), plus a handling fee levied up for sending unaccompanied baggage,” Yu explains.
After receiving customers’ baggage, UBL will reserve air cargo space with airlines directly or through an agent. Depending on the airline booked, baggage will be dispatched to either the Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals or the Asia Airfreight Terminal. Once further instructions are received from the confirmed airline, baggage will be sent eventually for departure.
Yu notes as baggage is forwarded as air cargo, very often the airfreight used is different from the aircraft or the airline which the passenger takes, therefore the baggage will not arrive at the same time as its owner.
“It is usually around three days if the baggage is sent to destinations in South East Asia like Singapore, Taipei and India, while it takes five days to one week to more distant areas such as Africa and Europe; it all depends on the availability of flights. Upon arrival, airline will notify baggage-owner to collect their baggage at the airport and clear customs,” adds Yu.
At present, the UBL handles an average of 10-15 pieces of baggage daily. The busier months during the year are April and October when many overseas buyers visit Guangzhou’s trade fairs via Hong Kong, usually bringing back with them loads of product catalogues after the trade events.
Having offered its service at the Hong Kong Airport for three decades, the UBL has also witnessed the changing crowd of tourists which swarmed the airport at different periods over the years.
According to Yu, their market in the 80s was predominated by numerous couples from Australia and New Zealand that came to Hong Kong for sight-seeing and shopping.
“The 90s is UBL’s golden age when many Filipino domestic helpers brought back lots of luggage when they returned home; during the peak time we handled 600 pieces of baggage daily! However we lost this market in the mid 90s’ when they shifted to ship back most of their baggage by sea,” continues Yu.
After year 2000, UBL’s customers come mostly from Africa. They are tourists who come to visit Hong Kong, while paying side trips to Guangdong to buy stacks of clothing, accessories and footwear which they resell in their hometown. Yu smiles and notes they have handled this kind of baggage which sometimes got an amazing weight up to 200 kg and measures 4 ft x 4 ft in dimension!
