Friday, August 14, 2015

Giant Freighter Aircraft Match Flights to Ensure Speedy Delivery of Energy Industry Cargo

Why Take One Huge Plane When Two Will Do?
Shipping News Feature

RUSSIA – KUWAIT – Heavy lift and project air freight specialist Volga-Dnepr Airlines, has completed two simultaneous IL-76TD-90VD cargo flights to ensure the fastest possible delivery of urgent mobile drilling equipment for an oil and gas customer in Kuwait. The flights from Liege, Belgium carried the 16-tonnes mobile installations, both of which drove into the cargo holds of the giant freighter aircraft under their own power. Rinat Akhmetov, Sales Executive at Volga-Dnepr UK, explained:

“As the cargo was required in Kuwait urgently, we operated two flights to ensure all of the drilling equipment arrived at the same time as opposed to a single aircraft taking longer to conduct both deliveries in sequence.”

Transporting equipment and materials for major customers in the oil and gas industry is one of Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ biggest areas of activity. Since the airline was founded in 1990, it has safely delivered over 90,000 tonnes of oil and gas cargoes all over the world using its fleet of ten An-124-100 and five IL-76TD-90-VD freighters. Christopher Klein of the German logistics company Karpeles Flight Services GmbН, a subsidiary of Schenker AG, which requested the flights, said:

“Seeing the two IL-76 freighters side-by-side in Liege was very eye-catching for everyone at the airport but the main objective was to meet our customers’ delivery time requirements and this solution with Volga-Dnepr ensured we did that. Everything was great!”