NEO Air Charter, on behalf of Blue Water Shipping, delivered heat pipes to Iceland after damage to the underground heating pipe network on the Reykjanes Peninsula.
Repeated earthquakes caused eruptions of the Fagradalsfjall volcano, which led to lava flows damaging the local pipe network that serves 10 percent of the country’s homes. As a result, 20,000 households on the Reykjanes Peninsula endured -15 degree temperatures without heating. To deliver the pipes and restore the network, Blue Water Shipping and NEO Air Charter urgently located and booked a suitable aircraft to operate an emergency flight from Cologne to Keflavik.
A Bluebird Airlines Boeing 737 freighter was secured and staff arranged the ground transport for the 90-minute journey from the pipe manufacturer to the departure airport. Trucks were on-site and ready to load early the next day.
Despite cargo handler and Customs staff shortages, as well as an error in the declared size of the packages, NEO was able to remove the pallets, organise 1,000 boxes of pipes to be X-ray scanned individually and then repacked onto 41 pallets for loading onto the aircraft.
The flight took off just two hours later than originally scheduled, and less than 24 hours after the initial booking. The goods arrived in Keflavik the same evening.
“This was one of those jobs where we hit one obstacle after another, but – through perseverance and close collaboration with all parties – it all worked out fine in the end,” said NEO’s general manager Brian Davis. “We’d like to particularly thank both dnata for putting an extra team on the job at extremely short notice, and Customs in Cologne for giving the complex procedures for this critically urgent, high-value shipment their top priority.”
