Another Successful Charter For The Books

It was definitely a herculean effort by the MASkargo team recently for a Hong Kong (HKG) bound charter flight. For the first time in its history, MASkargo’s A330-200 freighter carried three IAE V2500 aircraft engines in a single flight!

Che Adenan Che Wan, MASkargo’s Freighter Operations Senior Manager, shared the challenges behind the success of this charter project.

“These engines belong to Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA). We faced stumbling blocks immediately from the get go. There were documentation issues, legal and insurance issues as well as traffic rights issues. Just when we got them sorted out, we were hit by a delay due to aircraft rotation constraint arising from In-Fa Typhoon! It really was a case of ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going’. All the different units involved in this project carried their weight well to ensure that this charter happens. We had  multiple coordination meetings to work out theses kinks. When our aircraft finally arrived in Brunei (BWN), the RBA ground team was ready to load the three engines into our freighter. It was a test of strength and mettle to load the 36million dollar engines which total weight was 14,100kg  in the hot sun.

The initial plan was to fly direct BWN to HKG but this plan went out the window as the Civil Aviation Department of Hong Kong did not approve the plan due to traffic rights issue. So our flight had  to stop in Kota Kinabalu (BKI) to make use of existing traffic right. After successfully overcoming all the hurdles, MH6116 landed safely at the Hong Kong International Airport at 2005LT on 27 July with the three engines in its cargo hold.

It is actually a historic flight since we have never carried three aircraft engines in one flight. This is also the first time that we sealed an agreement direct with RBA as before this it was done through a charter broker and I do hope that RBA will keep using our services for their engine transportation. For all their commitment  and support which made this project a success that it is, I wish to convey my utmost appreciation to all the parties involved – MASkargo Commercial and Operation teams, the Legal, Insurance, Finance teams in MH, the HKG team, the Loadmasters, Airport Services especially the BWN Station Head who assisted with the coordination in BWN and BKI team. We made this happen together!