It was freezing cold at the airport that day in January. “It felt like ten to twelve degrees below zero”, our air freight team members recall. They were supervising the loading operations for a top urgent air cargo project: our customer had entrusted to us the transport of a tons weighing piston for a steel press from their factory in Germany to their customer’s manufacturing site in the US. The consignee was urgently awaiting the delivery of the piston.
“To make a match between the nature of goods – especially regarding weight – and the tight time frame available for delivery, we decided to charter an IL76 – an Ilyushin – which is a special type of freighter”, our air freight specialists say.
The IL76 was already in position when our air freight specialists arrived at the airport. A special crane and a ramp for loading the cargo aboard the aircraft were just being positioned so that loading operations could commence immediately.
Planning and realizing air cargo projects is a specialty of our team.
“The piston will reach the consignee in time”, Tommy Chun, Dominik Ruckdeschel and Zhipeng Liu, who were in charge of the project, were confident. Planning and realizing air cargo projects is a specialty of the Karl Gross air freight section. A short time before this project, they had chartered an Antonov – the world’s largest cargo aircraft – to deliver an oversize and heavy lift consignment in time.
As for this shipment, the IL76 departed from the airport at 8 p.m. – with a delay of two hours. “To ensure arrival in the US in time, we had the flight route adapted”, our colleagues recall. “One refuelling stop was cancelled and a second stop (crew rest) was done in Iceland instead of in Ireland. In this way, we could make up for the delay in departure.” The IL76 touched down at the airport of arrival in the US on January 10th, 6 p.m. local time.
Covering a 750 kilometers distance in less than ten hours
The consignment was discharged right away and loaded onto a trailer truck for immediate take-off to its final destination in the Northwest of the state of Pennsylvania. The entire on-carriage was performed within nine hours, only.
