When sending your parcels abroad you will commonly use an International parcel courier service, who like your normal nationwide parcel courier service will come and collect it from your business, and arrange for it to be transported via airmail to your customer abroad.
In the majority of cases this will suffice for all your International parcel delivery needs. However your parcel may take several days to then be delivered to your customer via surface mail once it has landed in their country.
As an example a parcel being collected from a business in the United Kingdom may arrive in the United States just two days later, but may then take another three days to deliver. Then throw in a weekends delay, possibly two, and your parcel could take seven to ten days to arrive at your customer.
For most International deliveries this may not be a problem, however if you have an item that is business critical to get to your customer abroad in just two to three days, then you need to consider the use of a specialist parcel air courier.
Parcel air couriers will arrange for the parcel to be collected from you and taken to their offices, much like a normal International courier would. The difference thereafter is rather than send it via airmail, they will employ a courier to personally take your parcel on a scheduled airline flight, and then either meet their counterpart to hand the parcel over, or hire a car, or get on another airplane as required to personally deliver the parcel to your customer.
This whole process can get your parcel to your customer in just two days rather than seven to ten.
The advantage in using one of these parcel air courier services is that they get your goods to your customer fast. The disadvantage is that they can only carry a parcel of a certain weight, and lastly these parcel courier services will obviously come at a premium charge.