heavy-lift Last year, for instance, international forwarder


Geodis Wilson managed the shipment of what were stated at the time to be the longest cargo items ever moved by air – two new prototype wind turbine blades being transported from Tianjin to Denmark for Danish manufacturer LM Wind Power. The 42.1-metre long blades were carried in the 43- metre hold of the AN-225, the world’s largest air freighter.


LOADING COMPLEXITIES “Such an operation had never been organised before so we had to figure out a way to get those very long pieces inside the aircraft,” a senior Geodis Wilson executive explained. “Together with the


The movement required four AN-124 flights, with the pipes


packed in custom-made steel frames for transport. Chapman Freeborn explained that the freight for every flight


consisted of three elements, each 21.1 meters long and weighing 30 tonnes. “Loading required precision. Two special cranes were needed to lift the extremely heavy components from a flatbed truck to the aircraft’s loading carriage. “Technicians located inside and outside continuously


monitored the correct position of the freight. Constant measuring, alignment and adjustment needed to be done before each piece could be finally set down in the aircraft.” Generally, confirm a number of air freight service providers,


pieces of oil/gas and power generation sector equipment requiring shipment by air are getting larger and heavier. At the same time, they are also being asked to handle certain new types of outsize equipment offering different challenges.


customer, we developed a wheeled system whereby we could roll the blades into the aircraft by simply putting a winch inside it. The AN-225 is a nose loader and can ‘kneel down’ so we wheeled the blades up a kind of angled ramp.” Sometimes the challenge is not so much the total weight of


the piece of equipment to be shipped by air as the density of that item – in other words, how much weight and pressure it will exert on individual square metres of an aircraft hold floor. One example


Chapman: oil and gas work boosts the market


High oil and gas prices are boosting global heavy-lift and project air cargo business. However, general project air cargo activity in China is currently more subdued. Commenting on the worldwide picture, Lesley Cripps, sales manager cargo for UK-based air charter company Chapman Freeborn, suggested that the global heavy-lift/project air cargo market is “starting to pick up”. “Things were a bit quiet to begin with this year, but projects


are now beginning to kick off in various regions such as Brazil, Australasia and the Caspian,” she stated. “High oil and gas prices are a key driving factor behind that but I think the recent nuclear power station incident in Japan may also be encouraging some people to go ahead with new LNG (liquefied natural gas) projects.” Asked specifically about the heavy-lift/project air cargo


market in China right now, Cripps stated that “to be honest, that market has quietened down a bit”, possibly due to some


22 AIR LOGISTICS CHINA


manufacturing companies looking to switch or regionalise part of their production in China to other parts of the world to save on transportation costs. Leo Ge, managing director of


Shanghai-headquartered Chinese project forwarder Global Star Logistics, a company that is primarily involved with export project cargo shipments from that country, confirmed that “there is


currently not really any strong growth in project air cargo traffic out of China at the moment”. However, when China’s heavy-lift/project air cargo market is


more active, securing the required aircraft capacity can be an issue, Ge remarked. “We mainly move our freight on commercial scheduled freighter services rather than charter flights and we do sometimes struggle to find space,” he admitted. “For that reason, we prefer to work with carriers which give us


a strong commitment when it comes to providing capacity, such as Air France and Air China.”


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