ACS and Antonov Airlines deliver the Americas’ heaviest ever air cargo
23 / 11 / 2016
Last week, the Brazil and Florida offices of global charter broker Air Charter Service (ACS) collaborated on a charter involving Antonov Airlines’ giant AN-225, the world’s largest freighter aircraft.
Moreover, this particular charter involved the heaviest single piece of air cargo ever flown into the Americas.
The cargo in question was a transformer which weighs no less than 182 tonnes.
It was flown from São Paulo in Brazil to Santiago de Chile. From there it was moved to its final destination, where it is has replaced a damaged transformer in a plant near the capital.
Richard Thompson, president of ACS Americas, remarked: “The airline has said that it is the second heaviest single piece of cargo that has ever been transported by air and the largest to fly in the Americas.
“The record is a single piece weighing 187.7 tonnes, which was flown from Frankfurt to Yerevan in 2009, making this charter the heaviest piece flown this decade,” he reported.
Thompson continued: “A lot of careful planning went into this operation. 182,000 kilos is more than most cranes’ lifting capacity, and with the tricky dimensions, it took almost four months of discussions between us, the client, the airline and the airports to plan the charter and exactly how we would load and offload the cargo.
“The power unit is more than 4 metres high, and that doesn’t include the transportation cradle that it is travelling in.
“As you can see from the photo, it was a tight fit, even for the world’s largest cargo aircraft. It generated a lot of local attention, with many Brazilian television networks covering the loading and departure,” he noted.
In recent times, ACS has also arranged several cargo and passenger charter flights to Haiti, assisting in the relief effort that was launched in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew striking the country last month (October).
These charters carried cargo including medicine, mosquito nets tarpaulins, jerry cans and buckets for clean water to help those made homeless by the hurricane.
