Ground Expedite & Air Charter Services

Door-to-door expedited freight by ground or air — exclusive use, no cross-docking, tracked every mile. Solution implemented in about 30 minutes. Truck at your dock in 30 to 150 minutes in almost all cases.

Ground Expedite — Truck Brokerage

Are you a shipping manager with a time-sensitive part still sitting on the dock after your regular truck has already left?

Kelley specializes in quickly creating tailored solutions, often implementing a solution within 30 minutes and having a truck arrive at your dock in 30 to 180 minutes from your initial contact with us.

Kelley has a large notification network of straight trucks, cube trucks, flatbeds, tractor-trailers, and over 23,000 cargo sprinter vans that can be notified of your load within 2 minutes and 31 seconds via our BidBoard.

All shipments have only your material in them with no cross-docks. Dispatch open 24/7/365.

Fleet Overview

Vehicle Type	Best For	Key Detail
Cargo Sprinter Van (~23,000)	Boxes, creates up to three skids, 3000 lbs and urgent material	Notified within 2 minutes 31 seconds via BidBoard blast
Straight Truck / Cube Van	Medium loads needing more space than a sprinter like 10 skids if not staked	Exclusive use, direct delivery, no co-loading
Flatbed Truck	Oversized, heavy, or irregularly shaped freight	Short-haul and cross-country expedites available
Tractor-Trailer (53 ft)	Large-volume expedites that tend to have teams	Dedicated, only your material on board, available on demand

Wreckers with mobile Forklifts & Backup Trucks
Service immediately provided

Kelley has used wreckers with forklifts to transfer skids from broken, stuck and trucks with driver problems to recovery trucks in the middle of the night.
Towing, wreckers with forklifts, mobile forklifts, roadside assistance, and backup trucks are always provided.
No shipment is ever abandoned. Every shipment succeeds by Kelley.

Air Charter Freight — Two Service Options

Air charter is the ideal option when material needs to be delivered the same day over long distances as fast as humanly possible. No TSA is required for any air charter freight aircraft. Kelley manages all ramp, landing, and airport handling at both ends.

Service Option	What Kelley Provides	Best When
Air Charter — Freight Only	Charter aircraft and full airport handling (ramp, landing, loading). Federal excise taxes paid by Kelley usually before billing. Customer arranges own ground transport.	Customer has existing airport or ground transport relationships at both ends
Air Charter — Blended with Kelley Ground Trucks	Local truck to dock, airport transport, charter flight, second truck from destination airport to final delivery. Customs, Customs Broker and full handling dock to dock trucks or door-to-door under one point of contact.	Customer needs complete door-to-door management with experience.

Air Charter Process — Step by Step

Local truck dispatched to your dock

Kelley dispatches a truck immediately. No TSA required for air charter freight aircraft. Access to 5,000+ US airports.

Freight loaded — aircraft departs

Kelley organizes all ramp, landing, and airport handling. Federal excise taxes handled by Kelley before customer billing.

Flight tracked via GPS & Aviation Radar

Continuous monitoring throughout the entire flight. Accurate ETAs updated in real time and communicated to customer.

Destination truck delivers to final address

Local truck from destination airport completes final delivery. Proof of delivery photo sent immediately to customer.

Insider information From a 40-Year Freight Pilot

When expediting up to two full skids via air charter, one strategic decision can slash your costs dramatically.
Ask can your shipment be separated into smaller units instead of shipping as one or two 4-foot cube containers?

Why?

Doubles your aircraft options by enabling use of smaller more economical planes with smaller cargo or passenger doors to be used loading them into the plane in a more compact manner also considering aircraft balance.
Eliminates expensive forklift and handling fees at major airports because the smaller units can be handled by hand. Skids and shrink wrap at destination airport may be provided by final delivery truck.
Bypasses Significant Federal Excise Taxes that larger aircraft are not exempt from charging. Plus, these smaller aircraft can access 5,000+ public airports nationwide, getting closer to both pickup and delivery locations while avoiding costly congestion delays.
Consider shipping just enough of the critical materials by air charter to hold you off until more of the same material arrives to the destination, via ground or other mode arrives. Consider shipping just enough of the critical materials by air to hold you off until more of the same material arrives to the destination, via ground, arrives.

Tip: Break Down Skids to Double Your Aircraft Options

When moving less than two full skids, hand-loading smaller units through a smaller cargo door more than doubles the number of available aircraft.

Smaller aircraft access smaller, less-congested airports closer to pickup and delivery — typically at lower cost.
Smaller aircraft may also be exempt from federal excise taxes, unlike larger aircraft.

Shipping to Canada and Mexico

Yes — Kelley offers ground and air freight to and from Canada and Mexico. Customs assistance is handled by Kelley. We typically need the shipper’s outbound and inbound customs broker names — brokers holding a prior power-of-attorney relationship with the shipper. The Bill of Lading description and declared value on customs invoice must match exactly in all customs documentation before clearance. Kelley handles all other details.

What We Need to Quote Any truck or charter Shipment

Pickup city and zip code
Delivery city and zip code
Container / freight dimensions (L x W x H) number of containers and weight
Ready time — when freight is available for pickup
Deadline time — hard delivery deadline at destination
Shipping hours at the pickup location
Receiving hours at the delivery location
Any special handling requirements

Contact names and numbers for pickup and delivery are provided once the trip is booked — they help ensure smooth execution at both ends.

Need Help With That Critical Shipment?

Call us at 1-800-860-1054, e-mail at info@kelleyair.com, or text us at (616) 528-8253.
It could save you time, money, and even a customer.