Air Charter Service divided a five tonne shipment, which was labelled urgent, into 186 packages so that it could be carried by 25 on-board carriers on a variety of routes from Hong Kong to Portugal.
Oliver Weigelt, ACS’s on-board courier manager, explained that the ACS Geneva office was asked to move urgently-needed automotive parts from Zhongshan to Porto after the client found that there was no regular airfreight option due to the holiday weekend in China.
“We were initially approached for a charter, but that would need seven days for permits in Asia – so our charter team passed the request over to the OBC [on-board courier] team,” said Weigelt.
The cargo was trucked to Hong Kong, where it was repacked from the pallets into 186 separate packages, each weighing 32 kg, IATA’s maximum allowed weight for a single item.
“The first group of our couriers set off less than 36 hours after the initial call from the client, each with seven packages. The teams flew from Hong Kong into either Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Munich, before taking their connecting flights to Porto.”
All of the cargo arrived in Porto just 72 hours after the trucks picked up the shipment in Zhongshan.
“Without our network offices and couriers, this shipment would not have been possible, and I now believe that there is no job too large for us to take on,” said Weigelt.
