Antonov Airlines` AN-124-100 ‘Ruslan’ chartered for three urgent cargo transportation from Europe to Asia

Antonov Airlines on behalf of its client deugro provided an urgent air cargo transport solution to move the time-critical cargo units from Italy and Belgium to Saudi Arabia on board of one of its AN-124-100 aircraft.

The cargo units, containing heat exchange equipment with a total volume of 811 cubic meters and a total weight of 252,216 kilograms, have been transported in three flights within 7 days.

The first two flights from Italy to Saudi Arabia contained three packages each with a total weight of 86.81 and 71.50 metric tons respectively. The third flight contained three packages with a total weight of 67.50 metric tons, which have been loaded in Milan, and an additional of four packages weighing 26.41 metric tons, have been loaded at Ostend-Bruges Airport.

“This project required flexibility to complete the urgent cargo transportations within a very short period of time. After the cargo was loaded in Italy we were requested to pick up the additional cargo unit during a stopover in Belgium. The project became successful thanks to the coordinated work of all teams involved, as well as ground handling and airports and customer-oriented service,” said Vladyslav Ishchuk, Commercial Executive, Antonov Airlines.

“Due to dimensions of the heat exchanger modules, they could have only been transported with Antonov aircraft. However, after start of the military conflict in Ukraine, which had dramatically impacted the heavy lift market and resulted in the loss of the AN-225 aircraft, the biggest challenge was to secure the required aircraft in time.

Thanks to deugro’s long-standing strategic relationship with Antonov Airlines` team, and despite the severe shortage of these aircraft in the view of the military conflict in Ukraine, we were able to successfully lock in the aircraft for the required dates of transportation,” said Pavel Kuznetsov, Head of Air Chartering, deugro.

Antonov Airlines is recognized as “The Best Cargo Charter Operator of the Year” according the “Air Charter Excellence Awards” that was held by The Air Charter Association in autumn 2022.

Project freight forwarding company deugro has received the award “Airfreight Solution of the Year 2021” in Heavy Lift Awards held by HLPFI.