Ukrainian An-124-100 delivered vaccine production equipment from Germany to the USA
Antonov Airlines transported pharmaceutical machines for the production of vaccines against COVID-19 from Germany to the United States. Six flights were successfully completed from Frankfurt Hahn Airport, Germany, to the United States, including Baltimore, Maryland, and Kingston, North Carolina. Several flights took place in difficult weather conditions caused by snow storms.
In particular, in order to safely deliver cargo on one of the flights, due to heavy snowfalls, it was necessary to change the airport of arrival from Baltimore to Stuart International Airport, New York.
An-124-100 aircraft with a carrying capacity of 150 tons were involved in the transportation of vehicles, each of which weighs 100 tons. Loading and unloading was carried out using cranes and special equipment developed by the engineers of Antonov Airlines.
An order for the transportation of vaccine production equipment came from DHL Global Forwarding.
As noted by her chief international transport manager Christopher Klein:
“These charter flights became a big project that we carried out together with Antonov Airlines, fully fulfilling the wishes of the customer. Over the past several months, there have been a number of challenges related to the blizzard on the east coast of the United States that needed to be overcome. In particular, this led to the fact that one day we had to quickly change the destination airport. ”
Dmitry Prosvirin, Head of Customer Relations Department, Antonov Airlines said:
“We are proud to have our airline play a key role in the global fight against coronavirus. The flights performed have become another contribution to this important cause. ”