[gambiting]

My dad used to do the same thing all the time but with trains and coaches - if you had to send something to the other side of the country pronto, you'd go to the train/coach station, speak to the driver, hand them some money, and they'd happily take whatever you were sending with them. It was literally the fastest way to get something somewhere. It doesn't surprise me at all that people used to do the same thing with flying.

[biztos]

In some parts of the world this is still the norm. I know someone who sends things to her parents (about a 10-hour drive away, in a village) exclusively by bus. You pay off the driver, tell him/her who's going to pick up the package and at what stop, and off they go.

Seems to work really well, from the POV of the driver, the sender, and the recipient. Cheaper than DHL, more trustworthy than the post office, faster than both!

It's routine enough I can't imagine the bus service doesn't know about it, my bet is they tolerate it because it lets the drivers make a living wage (and thus gets you better drivers) and because most packages aren't big enough to be disruptive.