About Us
Established in New York City in 1984 by our founder Johnny Valdes, Johnny Air Cargo is a dedicated Philippine air parcel service that provides a way to send packages from the USA to the Philippines. We pioneered the industry in providing speedy, reliable delivery of packages and guarantee that your packages are delivered to loved ones quickly, efficiently, and for the least amount of money.
While residing in the United States, Johnny traveled back to the Philippines frequently. In the early 1980s, the postal service in the Philippines was extremely inefficient and unreliable. It took several weeks for packages to reach their local destinations and many were lost or damaged in transit. Consequently, Johnny was asked by fellow Filipinos in the U.S. to deliver packages to their relatives with each trip home. Eventually, Johnny was carrying so many of these packages or padala to the Philippines that he had to begin charging for the excess baggage weight.
This gave Johnny the idea to start a Philippine parcel service to meet a need that is unique to the Filipino culture: Filipinos abroad wanting to carry on the tradition of gift-giving or pasalubong as a way of sharing with their loved ones back home, coupled with the Filipino appetite for fine, imported goods. The need for padala works both ways: Filipinos in the U.S. appreciate the value of Philippine-made clothes and shoes, native foods and native handicrafts.
In 1984, Johnny established Johnny Air Cargo (JAC), becoming the first door-to-door courier service between the United States and the Philippines serving Filipino-Americans. The business was initially operated from Johnny's residence in Queens with only one full-time employee and a driver. A rapidly growing Filipino-American community in the New York metropolitan area—with a sizeable segment in the medical profession—enabled Johnny's home-grown business to prosper.
In 1987, Johnny Air Cargo, Inc. was incorporated and began expanding its business. Johnny Air Cargo's reputation for fast and efficient service spread quickly by word of mouth. Thus came the need to establish the main office in Queens, New York and open more branches in the United States and in other areas throughout the Philippines in the years that followed. In the United States, Johnny Air Cargo branches were opened consecutively in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and California. In addition, Johnny Air Cargo contracted outlets all over the Tri-State Area consisting of Filipino Stores and businesses who would receive and process packages for shipping. In the Philippines, multiple branches were opened in Makati, Mandaluyong, Bacolod, Cebu, Iloilo, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro to facilitate delivering packages to Metro Manila and the Provinces.
By this time Johnny Air Cargo had also expanded its business to include commercial accounts. One of Johnny Air Cargo's major achievements was landing the accounts of the Philippine General Consulate Office and the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York. Soon afterwards, Johnny Air Cargo began to acquire other corporate accounts like Gelmart, Inc., Natori Corporation, BPI, Jaguar Philippines and Sari-Sari Store, to name a few. Johnny Air Cargo also began providing express parcel service for a growing number of Filipino Overseas Workers (OFW), and Filipino immigrants in New York, and eventually in Los Angeles, San Francisco.
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In due time Johnny Air Cargo continued expanding and added new services that catered to the Filipino customer. These included other services such as Ocean Cargo shipping, Money Remittance, Travel Services, and Shop Online. A Filipino store was even opened in Manhattan above a Johnny Air Cargo branch.
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As a result of its continued business success in the United States, Johnny Air Cargo saw it was time to provide the same exceptional service in air parcel delivery to the Canadian Filipino community. Thus, Johnny Air Cargo Canada was born. Our mission is to provide a speedy and safe alternative to shipping packages to the Philippines at the most reasonable cost. The goal is to utilize over 30 years of experience, knowledge and customer satisfaction in delivering packages from the US to the Philippines and providing this to our dear Canadian customers.
So send your packages to the Philippines now! Rest assured that your package will get there quickly, safely and securely.​
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