If when you enter to see the tracking of your AliExpress order you see “hand over to airline” or “shipment accepted by airline” and you don't know very well what they mean, today we are going to explain it to you in detail.
Remember that you can see the most updated status of your order by clicking here.
What does “hand over to airline” mean?
There are two ways for an order to reach your country: by air or by ship. If your package is to be sent by air, first the logistics company in charge will take it to the airport where it will be shipped to your country.
At that point, your package will be put in one of these two status (they are equivalent), until it arrives in your country and customs clearance begins at the airport.
Do I have to do anything if my order has been like this for several days?
No, you don't have to do anything. It's just another normal process that all orders go through.
From our experience, once it appears as “hand over to airline”, it usually takes between a week and a week and a half to change to the next status.
Here's more information on what to do if your AliExpress tracking is not updating and you think it's been there too long.
What are the next steps?
Once your order has arrived at the airport, customs clearance will begin there.
This expression may scare you, but there is no reason for it: most of the time the packages pass this process without any problem, and if the amount is low you can totally forget about it.
In this post about Customs in AliExpress we explain it in more detail.
The customs agents will be in charge of this management and, if everything goes well, (which is usually the case most of the time) the courier will accept your package, will take it to customs arrival and in the status of your order will be reflected as “shipment at local distribution center”.
You have more information in our article on “Shipment at local distribution center”.
Do I need to check my order tracking every day?
It is not necessary that you check every day how your order is going, as sometimes it can be a little desperate, but we do recommend that at least once a week, you do check how it is going.
Although AliExpress shipments have become much lighter and it is increasingly common to receive them in 2-3 weeks (or even less), it is important that you don't forget about it. If you click here you can see the tracking of your order.
All shipments have a protection period of 75 days, but if for some reason the package appears as delivered and you have not received anything, AliExpress automatically closes the status of your order and it will appear as delivered. From then on, you will have 15 days to open a dispute.
Once this time has elapsed, you will no longer be able to claim anything from the seller. That is why it is so important to be vigilant.
You can read more about this in the post AliExpress order delivered but not received.