Meeting The President Of AIRBOX EXPRESS
Aug 2nd, 2006 by Don Ray
I stopped by AIRBOX EXPRESS today to pick up my mail and happened to be there at the same time as Keith Blume. Keith is the President of AIRBOX EXPRESS in Panama and lives in Panama City but hails from Houston, Texas. He was on a working vacation and was checking the AIRBOX EXPRESS locations to see how well they were doing.
He asked how I liked the service and if I had used the new tracking on the website. Since most of my deliveries are just mail, I never track them. I just go in once a week to get them.
I told Keith that I liked the service and that Natalia always greeted me with a smile. Keith was interested in knowing how to get the word out to others in the area that he appreciated feedback either positive or negative. As anyone knows you can’t fix a problem you don’t know about.
I told him that in the Chiriquí area most people read Chiriqui Chatter or boquete.org and that I would let my readers know how to get in touch with him. Keith is pictured above with Natalia behind the counter and his son Joshua at his side. As you can tell Joshua is a Texas Aggie fan. Since the President of Panama went to Texas A&M, I think that is a good T-shirt to be wearing Joshua!
The contact information for Keith follows:
hey don…
thanks for your blog and the recent airbox article. i’ve been using airbox for a couple of months and have had good service. i’m a bit puzzled by some of the restrictions and i’m wondering if they are airbox restrictions or customs restrictions. seeds for instance. i know of others getting seeds via the mail and other mail forwarders but airbox says ”no seeds”.
but the reason i’m writing is, i’m looking for a link for tracking at airbox.com.pa and well let’s say (imo :), the site could use some organizing. any hints???
norm : ))~
Norm,
You have Keith’s email address on his card above in my post. Sounds like these are the exact things he needs to be questioned with.
To be honest, I haven’t looked at the site. I guess I should go take a look.
I will sure send him a report—I have been using the service for a long time, and the overall problem is that it’s very expensive. I am in the process of changing to a new service that costs about 50% less than aerocasillas.
For what I am getting, I am spending about 50% less than I did with my previous company. I don’t use it for much shipping of packages, just receiving mail from the US.
At least now you have an email address to the head of the company.
thanks don…
i’ll do that and i’ll also ask natalia, too.
as far as costs, i’m interested in what you (melissa) are thinking of using. i just learned that we have a maritime option for parcels 11#’s and up into david at $1.80 a pound which helps with the heavy items. takes more time but ya know… time is money.
the page won’t open for me now but there’s a link (maritime) in the text on this page
http://airbox.com.pa/services.htm
norm :))~
following up…
i wrote natalia and asked about airbox tracking and she signed me up and sent me an e-mail confirmation. she’s very efficient and her english is a big help while i learn spanish.
here’s the url for registering for airbox tracking. there’s a link for english. https://www.myaeropost.com/myaero/login.aspx
norm : ))~
I had found that link on their website. I hadn´t even noticed that Natalia spoke English. I guess she was keeping that a secret or thought it was better that I practiced my Spanish.
One of the issues I have with freight forwarders is they don’t send mail from Panama to the US, or if they do it costs an arm and a leg. The Panama mail service is as corrupt as the rest of the Gov. I have lost enough packages both incoming and outgoing to not use the Panama mail system.
Rratliff
Hi Robert,
AirBox has never lost any mail that has been sent to me.
Any mail I have needed to send to the US, I have sent through the Panama mail system and have registered it. None of it has been lost either.