OREANDA-NEWS. In one of its biggest-ever air logistics projects, Volga-Dnepr Airlines has safely completed 88 cargo flights carrying over 6,000 tons of equipment in the space of 103 days to supply the ExxonMobil-operated PNG LNG Project.

The airline's AN-124-100 aircraft operated all of the flights from Port Moresby Airport to the PNG LNG Project's newly constructed Komo Airfield. The aircraft carried equipment for the PNG LNG Project's Hides Gas Conditioning Plant in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

With each component averaging 60 tons in weight, including unique and oversized shipments requiring individual handling solutions, Volga-Dnepr's engineers created a special loading process to carefully place the pieces of equipment into the cargo hold. Additional work was conducted by the airline to minimise the empty weight of the AN-124-100 aircraft, tooling and packaging equipment to maximise the opportunities offered by the freighter's cargo capacity.

For these flights, special loading equipment was developed and manufactured by Volga-Dnepr and a special trailer was leased to simplify the loading and offloading of cargo, reducing the need to use cranes. This reduced the time required to load and offload cargo, which was an extremely important aspect of the entire project. Volga-Dnepr also developed solutions to ensure the appropriate maintenance of aircraft at Port Moresby airport during the 103 day project.

Dennis Gliznoutsa, Vice President, Development at Volga-Dnepr Airlines, said: “This project was complex and an interesting logistics challenge. Papua New Guinea is a country that has challenging climatic conditions, including highlands with frequent fog. We are proud to have successfully and safely completed this project by overcoming all of these difficulties and by once again demonstrating our expertise in the safe delivery of unique and outsize cargo. For us it was not only a commercial project but the opportunity to test ourselves again. Participation in this project has also helped us to strengthen our cooperation with regular customers and to acquire potential partners.”