India to the markets you sell into.
We are India-fronted and international in reach. Indian gateways, Indian clearance and an Indian team — connected to the rest of the world through a partner network built up over two decades.
Quote a lane
Origin, destination and what is in the box. A freight coordinator comes back with a routing and an itemised quotation, usually within one working day.
Your enquiry is with us.
A coordinator will come back with a routing and quotation, usually within one working day.
Five regions, one accountable partner.
Our worldwide partner network connects Indian shippers to these regions and many other destinations, by air and by sea, import and export.
Short-sea and air to the Gulf — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and their neighbours — on some of the busiest lanes out of India.
Ocean and air to the major North European and Mediterranean gateways, with onward distribution through partners on the continent.
The intra-Asia and Far East lanes, including transhipment hubs like Singapore and Colombo that connect India to the wider region.
East and West African ports and inland destinations, where local knowledge and a reliable agent matter more than anywhere.
Both US coasts and Canada, by ocean and air, with the customs and compliance realities of those markets handled through partners on the ground.
What each trade lane is actually like.
Regions are a convenience for a website. Cargo moves on lanes, and every lane has its own load ports, its own habits and its own way of costing you money when it is planned badly. Transit figures move with the season and the service, so we quote against the schedule the carrier is sailing rather than a number on a page.
The Gulf and the wider Middle East
The shortest deep-sea lane India has, and the busiest. Nhava Sheva to Jebel Ali is a matter of days rather than weeks, which changes the shape of the whole shipment: the paperwork, not the voyage, is usually the long pole. Departures leave every west-coast port weekly or better, so a rolled booking costs days instead of a fortnight. Saudi destinations run to their own rules on documentation and product marking, and Jeddah and Dammam behave differently from one another — both reward getting the certificates right the first time.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Kandla, Cochin; air from BOM and COK
- Lands at: Jebel Ali, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Dammam, Jeddah, Hamad, Sohar
North Europe
Mainline services run the Suez route and call at the big northern gateways, with barge, rail and road distribution onward into Germany, Poland and the Nordics. Transit is measured in weeks, so a missed cut-off is expensive in a way it is not on the Gulf run. When carriers route around the Cape instead of through Suez the schedule adds roughly a fortnight — we quote the routing the line is actually sailing, not the one it published in January. European consignees are also the most exacting about ISPM 15 marks on timber.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Chennai; feeder from Cochin
- Lands at: Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Le Havre, Gdansk
The Mediterranean
A week or so shorter than North Europe, and often served by a relay through Malta, Piraeus or Port Said rather than a straight run. That transhipment is not a defect — it is why weekly connections exist to ports too small for a mainline call, such as Koper for the Austrian and Hungarian hinterland or Mersin for southern Turkey. Italian and Spanish buyers generally want original documents in hand early, so a telex release agreed at booking saves an argument at the counter.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Cochin
- Lands at: Genoa, La Spezia, Barcelona, Valencia, Piraeus, Koper, Alexandria, Mersin
The United Kingdom
The UK is its own lane rather than an appendix to Europe, and has been since customs formalities returned at the Channel. Felixstowe, Southampton and London Gateway take the mainline calls; Liverpool is the sensible answer for the north and for Scotland. What trips Indian shippers is the far end — the importer needs a valid EORI registration, commodity codes have to match, and any wooden packaging must carry compliant treatment marks. Household goods and personal effects move on this lane too, through their own clearance route.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Chennai; air from BOM and DEL
- Lands at: Felixstowe, Southampton, London Gateway, Liverpool; LHR
North America — East Coast and Gulf
East Coast sailings run either east through Suez or west via a Mediterranean relay, and two carriers leaving on the same day can differ by a fortnight in transit. Savannah and New York take most Indian volume; Houston is the answer for the Gulf states and for a good deal of engineering cargo. Everything on this lane begins with advance filing — the importer’s security filing has to be lodged before the container is loaded in India, and a late one becomes a penalty that lands on your buyer.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Chennai; air from BOM and DEL
- Lands at: New York/New Jersey, Savannah, Norfolk, Charleston, Houston, Montreal
North America — West Coast
From India this is usually a transhipment service through Singapore, Port Klang or Colombo onto a trans-Pacific mainline, which makes the quality of the connection more important than the headline transit figure. For cargo bound inland to Chicago or Dallas, a West Coast landing plus rail can beat an East Coast landing plus truck — or lose to it, depending on the month and on rail performance. Both are worth pricing. Air out of BOM and DEL into ORD, JFK and LAX covers the deadlines ocean cannot.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Chennai, Cochin
- Lands at: Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, Vancouver, Prince Rupert
East Africa
East Africa is closer to India than Europe is and the sailings are frequent, but the voyage is the easy part. Mombasa and Dar es Salaam serve enormous landlocked hinterlands, and cargo for Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia or eastern Congo spends longer on the corridor road than it ever did at sea. That inland leg is where a good agent earns their fee: transit bonds, corridor clearance and a driver who can actually be reached. Where the cargo is going inland, the price we quote goes inland with it.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Cochin
- Lands at: Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Berbera; inland Kampala, Kigali, Lusaka
West Africa
Longer — round the Cape or via a Mediterranean or Gulf relay — and more demanding at the destination. Several countries here require a pre-shipment inspection or an electronic cargo tracking note obtained before the vessel sails; getting that number after departure is expensive and sometimes impossible. Lagos congestion is real and varies month to month, while Lekki has changed the picture for larger vessels. Documents on this lane are checked twice before release, because a correction at the far end is never a quick email.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Mundra
- Lands at: Lagos (Apapa, Tin Can), Lekki, Tema, Abidjan, Dakar, Douala, Cotonou
Southeast Asia and the Far East
Short transits, high frequency and genuine competition on rates. Chennai and Kolkata come into their own here — the east coast is materially closer to the Straits than Mumbai is, and a Chennai shipper routing through Singapore or Port Klang saves both days and money. Chinese ports are reached direct or through a Straits relay, and for LCL the consolidation schedule matters more than the vessel does. Import volumes on this lane are heavy, so equipment is generally available at short notice.
- Loads from: Chennai, Nhava Sheva, Cochin, Kolkata
- Lands at: Singapore, Port Klang, Laem Chabang, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Shanghai, Ningbo, Busan
Australia and New Zealand
A long, well-served lane with the strictest biosecurity regime any Indian exporter will meet. Quarantine at both destinations inspects for soil, seeds, insects and untreated timber, and a container that fails is fumigated or sent back at the shipper’s cost. Cleanliness at stuffing is not a formality on this lane — it is the single largest cost risk on it. Fremantle is the first call westbound, which makes Perth quicker and cheaper than the eastern states; New Zealand is usually reached by relay through Australia or the Straits.
- Loads from: Nhava Sheva, Chennai, Cochin
- Lands at: Fremantle, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide; Auckland, Tauranga, Lyttelton
The direct sailing is not always the fast one.
Shippers ask for a direct service because it sounds safer, and often it is the slower choice. A direct vessel that calls at six ports before yours can lose more time alongside than a relay ever costs, while a feeder to a hub and a straight run on a mainline puts your box on a faster ship with better schedule integrity.
Frequency matters as much as speed. A weekly direct service means a missed cut-off costs seven days. A hub with daily onward departures absorbs the same mistake in a day or two. For south Indian cargo especially, a short feeder to Colombo opens up services that never call in India at all — and for anything moving to the smaller Gulf, Red Sea or island destinations, a relay is not an option, it is the only routing that exists.
The genuine risk in transhipment is the connection, not the extra handling. A box that misses its onward vessel sits at the hub until the next one, and nobody at the terminal will telephone to mention it. So the question we ask of a routing is not how many legs it has — it is how much slack sits between arrival and the onward sailing, and how often that connection has actually held over the last few months.
- ColomboA day or two from the south Indian ports, and the relay point onto services that never call in India at all.
- Jebel AliThe Gulf’s redistribution hub — cargo for the smaller Gulf and Red Sea ports normally relays here.
- Singapore & Port KlangThe Straits hubs, where India–Far East services meet the trans-Pacific and Oceania mainlines.
- SalalahAn Omani hub on the Europe run, useful for East African and Red Sea connections.
Every mode, chosen for the shipment.
Air
When the deadline is the constraint — scheduled uplift, consolidations, express and charter from the major Indian air gateways.
Ocean
FCL and LCL on the major container lanes, plus reefer, open-top and flat-rack equipment for cargo a standard box will not take.
Breakbulk & project
Breakbulk and roll-on/roll-off for outsize and heavy cargo that cannot containerise, planned lift by lift.
Road & inland
The first and last legs — collection, delivery and inland haulage between your premises and the port or airport.
We work the ports and airports that carry India’s trade.
With offices in Cochin and Mumbai, we cover the west-coast container ports and the southern and western air gateways directly, and reach the rest through our network.
Most export cargo does not begin its journey at a port. It begins at an inland container depot — Tughlakabad or Dadri for the north, Whitefield for Bengaluru, Irugur for the Coimbatore belt — where the box is stuffed, the entry is filed and the seal goes on before anything moves to the coast. Booking through an ICD puts the customs formalities where your goods already are and takes the port out of the critical path, and on the northern lanes rail down to Mundra or Nhava Sheva is usually cheaper and far more predictable than road.
At the coast, LCL cargo passes through a container freight station to be stuffed or broken down. That step is invisible on a quotation until it goes wrong: a CFS running a two-day backlog will hold your consignment as effectively as any customs query. We name the station on the booking and check how it is running before committing to a cut-off — unglamorous work that rescues more shipments than anything clever done with rates.
- Nhava Sheva (JNPT)Mumbai’s deep-water container port — India’s largest, and an hour from our Mumbai office.
- MundraGujarat’s major private port and a leading container gateway, fed by rail from the northern ICDs.
- Kandla / DeendayalThe older Gujarat port: bulk, liquid and a large share of the chemical and salt trade.
- Chennai & EnnoreThe principal east-coast container gateway, and the closest Indian port to the Straits.
- CochinOur home port in Kerala, with a transhipment terminal at Vallarpadam.
- Kolkata & HaldiaThe eastern river ports serving the Bengal hinterland and Nepal transit cargo; draught limits vessel size.
- Mumbai (BOM) airThe country’s busiest air-cargo gateway.
- Delhi (DEL) airThe northern gateway for the NCR manufacturing belt.
- Bengaluru (BLR) & Hyderabad (HYD) airElectronics, pharmaceuticals and perishables from the southern belt.
- Chennai (MAA) & Cochin (COK) airEngineering cargo, seafood and spices from the south.
A trusted agent on the other end of every lane.
International freight only works if someone competent is waiting at the destination. Over two decades we have built relationships with agents who clear, handle and deliver to the same standard we do at this end — so a shipment does not fall off a cliff the moment it leaves India.
What we ask of them is simple and hard to find: that they answer on the day, that they quote destination charges before the cargo sails rather than after it lands, and that they tell us when something has gone wrong instead of waiting to be asked. An agent who cannot do those three things does not stay on the list, however sharp their tariff.
Ask us about your trade lane.
If your lane is not listed, ask anyway — the partner network reaches considerably further than the lanes we work weekly. Origin, destination and commodity is enough to start.
- Itemised quotation — every line explained
- Carrier-neutral routing, chosen for your cost
- In-house customs filing at both ends
- One named coordinator per file
Tell us what you are shipping.
Send us the cargo, the origin and destination, and the date you need it there. We will come back with a practical routing and a clear quotation — not a form letter.