Airline Guitars makes an interesting detour into Fuzz Pedal territory with its Dirty Birdy Fuzz - available in 3 limited artwork editions - for just $99 each!

This is a weird one - as I quite liked the look (and sounds) of the Vintage Pastel Edition of the Dirty Birdy in particular. Seemingly an SMT Silicon Transistor Fuzz with at least 3 Transistors onboard (Q3!), and 2 Diodes (D2!) - with excellent playing dynamics and superb guitar volume gain cleanup.

All good things in my book! And the ’Airline’ ticket price is super appealing too at $99 / £75. They advertise ’worldwide shipping!’ - where I got as far as checkout - before being blown out of the water by absolutely ludicrous shipping costs - with the cheapest option at £95 equivalent, rising to £147 - so up to nearly twice the price of the pedal!

Of course Customs and Imports charges are paid on the total value - which includes shipping. In my manor - this would be seen as akin to a mugging / having your trousers pulled down somewhat vigorously!

I of course exited stage left fairly swiftly - somewhat mystified by the eventual diminishing returns!

Dirty Birdy Controls - Level, Tone, Thrust (Fuzz).

Fender very evidently have a grip on the International market - reasonable / appropriate shipping costs etc. per their recent Godzilla Distortion pedal. Where Airline actually somewhat fittingly - are operating up in the clouds!

It’s a darn shame that naught came of this endeavour - as I really did quite fancy one of those Vintage Pastel ones. ’We Ship Worldwide!’ - nah - not likely at those prices!

As mentioned - we have 3 artwork variants - all with the same core dynamic / responsive fuzz circuit - Seafoam Sparkle Edition, Transistor Radio grey, and Vintage Pastels.

This is not by any means the first time this kind of thing happens to me - I’ve had many a pedals in the checkout in recent years - only to be surprised with untenable shipping costs at the end. If you’re shipping affordable / budget pedals - the delivery price has to be commensurate with that central value proposition - and as mentioned - for global operators like me - several additional fees are typically accrued in getting the pedal into the UK - not just shipping, but customs and import charges also - paid on the full total amount!

It means that increasingly Import pedals just aren’t properly viable a lot of the time. I ship in a lot of pedals from the USA - and I’ve never had to pay as much as £95 for that service - seems like Airline started early on its Football World Cup pricing accelerator, evidently in cahoots with all those transit authorities!

Would have been nice to have been able to grab a Dirty Birdy more cost-effectively - but it was not to be alas! Airline’s slogan is ’Go Fuzz Yourself’ I guess they mean the international shipping pricing also!

As of writing this - each of those 3 variants still has stock - that may no longer be the case though when this article goes live!