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Delivery of the goods is “not unloaded” by the seller at the destination place.

There is however a problem with Delivery at Paid (DAP) Airport. At the airport the goods are indeed unloaded from the aircraft, moved by trolley/truck into the terminal and again unloaded as part of the seller’s contract of carriage. They are made available for the buyer to collect as individual pieces already unloaded. Therefore the seller CANNOT deliver DAP Airport!

For delivery at the buyer’s premises the seller pays for carriage into the airport terminal. Then the seller’s carrier or their local office/agent again takes physical possession of the goods from the airport and brings the goods to the buyer’s premises where the buyer unloads the goods from the carrier’s truck.

What if the buyer has a delay in import clearance resulting in the seller incurring storage charges at the airport, as free storage is often only two or three days? Or the buyer takes longer than the trucker’s free time for unloading the truck? Ideally these possibilities should already be dealt with in the sales contract.

So be careful, DAP to an airport is not DAP, it is Delivered at Place Unloaded (DPU). We’ll deal with that soon.

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