CargoLogicAir has flown over 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid from East Midlands Airport to Barbados following Hurricane Irma.
The aid left East Midlands at about 17.00h on Thursday 21 September carrying 110 tonnes of cargo including water and other supplies, flying to Barbados to then distribute the aid to islands across the region, mainly for British troops and aid workers in the region (see video at bottom of story).
The flight was operating on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, which worked in partnership with CargoLogicAir, Air Charter Service and Manchester Airports Group to ensure the flight happened.
The Boeing 747-400ERF had already flown to Guadeloupe delivering aid on behalf of the French government, before flying to Quito in Ecuador to pick up flowers, which were flown to Maastricht in the Netherlands before landing in East Midlands to take the aid to Bridgetown, which is being used as a distribution hub as it has not been damaged.
Speaking to Air Cargo Week at the event, East Midlands Airport operations director, Howard Ebison explained that in a situation like this, it is hard to know what has happened at the destination, so MAG’s job is to make everything easier at its end.
He says: “As the largest pure cargo airport in the country we have a lot of relationships with significant partners and experts in this field and we can pull together as a team of multiple different businesses to enable something like to happen really effectively.”
He is expecting more flights, not only due to Hurricane Irma but also for the forthcoming hurricanes, and the earthquake in Mexico are likely to require aid flights.
CargoLogicAir chief executive officer, Dmitry Grishin attended the event and also spoke to Air Cargo Week.
Grishin says: “We have done three flights, two for the French government from Chateauroux to Pointe-a-Pitre and this one for the UK MOD. This aircraft has just come back from the second French flight with a load of perishables from South America to Maastricht.”
Air Charter Service press officer, Glenn Phillips was also in attendance, and explained that ACS has been busy organising aid flights including island hops carrying small loads of about three tonnes, and private jets.
He says: “We’ve done a total of 20 flights including two using Antonov AN-124s. The relief for Irma started before it hit with passenger aircraft and wealthy individuals on private jets.”
At the time of writing ACS had moved about 1,000 tonnes of aid.
