Original news was published on 30 July, 2014

Volga-Dnepr Group’s Engineering & Logistics Center created a loading frame to help transport a 30-ton oil and gas shipment from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, for freight forwarder Panalpina.

The oil and gas shipment consisted of five pieces, including 13-meter-long pipes weighing 18 tons.The cargoes were loaded onto Volga Dnepr’s IL-76TD-90VD air freighter.

Normally, loading such cargo would require the use of six tons of special loading equipment but at the time of the customer inquiry, Volga-Dnepr already had an aircraft positioned in the Asia Pacific region, so the ELC team devised a solution that eliminated the additional time and cost of moving the specialist loading equipment from Europe, the company said in a statement.

“We created a solution by developing a compact 600-kilogram frame that enabled the pipes to be loaded using the aircraft’s roller tracks,” Azat Yakupov, senior load planning engineer for dangerous cargo at Volga-Dnepr Airlines, said. “We prepared the necessary drawings and contracted a company in Johor Bahru to manufacture the frame for us. This enabled us to load the shipment safely at Johor Bahru Senai International Airport using the IL-76TD-90VD’s onboard crane as well as an external crane and lifting equipment without any delay to the planned flight schedule.”

Air charter sales of IL-76TD-90VD flights carrying oil and gas equipment doubled in the first half of 2014 to 32 percent of all flights operated by the aircraft compared with the opening six months of last year.

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