Antonov flies 40-ton cargo to Togo

Bolloré Transport & Logistics hired Antonov Airlines to transport a 40-metric tonne cargo, including control and battery rooms for power supply from Stockholm, Sweden, to Lomé, Togo. The control unit measuring 13 m long, 3.96 m wide, and 3.93 m high was urgently required to ensure there was no interruption to energy supply at an oil-producing plant.

“Antonov used a ramp system designed by our in-house engineering team in combination with an internal crane and onboard winches to safely load and unload the cargo,” said Olha Danylova, commercial executive, Antonov Airlines.

The cargo was transported on the AN-124-100 aircraft which has a 120-metric-tonne capacity. Antonov Airlines has a fleet of seven AN-124-100 Ruslan aircraft, two of them with a payload of up to 150 tonnes.

The delivery follows close after the company extended its deal with NATO for the Strategic Airlift International Solution (SALIS) program. Antonov has placed two AN-124-100s at NATO’s and EU’s disposal with additional airplanes provided by request. The AN-22 Antei and AN-225 Mriya are used to perform some missions by the program as well.

Earlier this year, the company also flew 40 tonnes of mining equipment from Vatry, France, to Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina. The oversized cargo sections, which included a large semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill head, were split into four sections, and transported on AN-124-100 chartered by Dynami Aviation.