Partner — Platton
Air freight is fast and unforgiving. The difference between an air shipment that lands clean and one that stalls in customs is almost always the forwarder standing behind it.
Not every load can wait three weeks on the water. When it can't, you need a forwarder who books the flight, clears the paperwork, and hands the box to a drayage carrier without dropping a beat.
Ocean is cheaper for almost everything. But some freight earns its airfare: a product launch that can't slip, a stockout that's costing sales by the day, high-value or lightweight goods where the freight is a small slice of the landed cost, or a repair part that's holding up a whole production line. Air gets it here in days instead of weeks — and the whole point is speed, so a slow handoff on the ground wastes the money you just spent to fly it.
We're an asset-based drayage and 3PL carrier — we own the trucks, the chassis and the warehouse. What we don't do is book international air freight. For that we point importers to our freight-forwarding partner, Platton. They're a US forwarder built for importers: they book the carrier at origin, run the ocean and air transit, handle customs clearance, and line up the drayage and delivery — one point of contact from booking to delivery confirmation.
That single-thread setup is the part that actually matters for air. When a flight is the plan, there's no room for a document that's a day late or a customs entry that isn't ready when the plane lands.
Speed you paid for
Platton books and clears the air freight; we handle the drayage and the last mile off the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma. No handoff dropped.
Talk to us about your importsHere's what usually goes wrong with air freight: the flying part works, and then the box sits. It sits because nobody booked the ground move, or the customs entry wasn't filed, or the drayage carrier didn't know it was coming. A strong forwarding partner closes that gap — and because Platton hands us a clean, cleared shipment, we can pull it and run it to your door or our warehouse partner Long Road Warehouse in Kent the same way we handle every ocean container.
If you're weighing air against ocean, our guide on cutting freight costs through the PNW is a good companion read — sometimes the answer is a mix, and a forwarder who does both makes that easy.
Use air when speed is worth the premium — tight launch dates, stockouts, high-value or lightweight goods, or critical parts. For most steady-volume freight, ocean plus efficient drayage is far cheaper.
We handle the US side — drayage, transloading, warehousing and final-mile. For international air and ocean forwarding and customs, we work with our partner Platton, then take the freight from the airport or port.
Air only pays off if the ground move and customs keep pace. A strong forwarder books the flight, clears customs and coordinates drayage so the shipment doesn't stall after it lands — which is where the speed is usually lost.
Platton is a US freight forwarder built for importers, handling carrier booking, ocean and air transit, customs clearance and delivery coordination. Learn more at platton.ai.
Yes — once Platton clears it, we handle the drayage and delivery across the Seattle–Tacoma area and the wider Pacific Northwest.