Notes to Editors
- Chapman Freeborn is the largest air charter broker in the world with 36 offices in 20 countries
- In June 2007, we were voted"Air Cargo Charter Broker of The Year" at the ACW World Air Cargo Awards in Munich
- Chapman Freeborn was established in 1973
- Annual group turnover is over $450m
- The Chapman Freeborn group employs nearly 300 personnel
- We specialise in moving urgent cargo, heavy and outsize pieces, high value commodities, dangerous goods and AOG parts
- Many of the world’s major relief organisations, governments, NGOs and other aid providers use our expertise in transporting relief goods and organising personnel evacuations
- We provide ACMI, wet, damp and dry leasing solutions for many of the world’s largest airlines
- We also provide General Sales Agency (GSA), Station Management and Ground Handling Services
- Our operations division, Paragon Global Flight Support provides 24 hour outsourced flight support
- Chapman Freeborn is listed in the Sunday Times’ Top Track 250 of the biggest mid-market private companies in the UK
For further information on this story, or about the Chapman Freeborn Group, please contact Julie Black or Andy James on +44 (0)1293 572832
Chapman Freeborn France Undertakes Charter to Rescue Stricken B777 in
Deepest Siberia
30th January 2006
Chapman Freeborn France’s cargo charter team was recently involved
in a mammoth charter to assist a passenger airline with a particularly tricky
aircraft-on-ground or AOG problem.
The
Boeing 777 went technical in Irkutsk, Siberia, a few days before Christmas,
a location with some unique weather conditions. The airline contacted
Chapman Freeborn’s Paris office to assist with the transportation
of the replacement GE90 engine and to bring the damaged engine back for
repair.
The engine is quite simply huge – the largest there is, and so it
took the Antonov 124 of Volga Dnepr to make the trip. There were some initial
loading problems in Paris Charles de Gaulle when the replacement engine
in it’s transportation mounting, was too tall to be loaded, so the
airline’s engineering personnel had to redesign and rebuild the mounting
to fit the freighter in a few short hours.
The weather conditions in Irkutsk were so severe that the engine had to
be transported with all the accessories “ready to fix”
so that the airline engineers could minimise their time working on the ramp
in the freezing conditions.
The aircraft then departed for Siberia, but severe weather conditions (temperature
of minus 30 degrees and frozen runway) prevented the AN124 from landing
there and so it diverted to Krasnoyarsk. There with the aircraft grounded
by the weather, the crew ran out of duty hours and had to rest until the
next day when they were able to fly to Irkutsk.
The weather in the region did not improve and the engine change actually
took a few days to complete, leaving the poor engineers and the charter
crew to spend Christmas together in the middle of nowhere in the depth of
the Siberian winter before flying home with the damaged engine.
Nonetheless, the airline operator was extremely happy with the service
provided by Chapman Freeborn who provided them throughout with a warm and
friendly service – unlike the weather…….
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