April 30 - dnata, the world's fourth largest combined air services provider offering ground handling and cargo services across five continents, is reporting growing out-of-gauge and oversize airfreight at Dubai International Airport (DIA).
A recent highlight saw a purpose-built gas turbine being flown to Nigeria. With a total weight of 95 tonnes, it was the heaviest single piece of cargo ever handled by any of the dnata FreightGatecargo terminals and ramp teams.
Other examples of over-sized cargo recently handled by the dnata team include a 25 tonne turbine generator, heavy vehicles weighing up to 30 tonnes per piece and pieces of cargo that exceed 15 m in length.
In response to the growing volume, dnata has steadily been increasing and improving its fleet of equipment to service the Dubai World Cargo (DWC) operation. In addition to the standard cargo-handling equipment, dnata has also invested in specialised equipment to help handle the out-sized loads, including a specially fabricated '40 foot dolly' engineered by dnata's ground support equipment (GSE) team which allows for the safe and easy transportation of loads up to 12.2 m in length.
The GSE team has also modified a standard aircraft loader to enable it to interface seamlessly with bulk-loaded aircraft and added a crane able to handle loads above 14 tonnes.
Stuart Hayman, vice president of cargo operations for dnata, says: "It has been a year of records being set and then just as quickly being exceeded. We measure our volumes for each shift and we often handle volumes in excess of 1,000 tonnes in these 12 hour shifts."
dnata currently handles a wide variety of freighter aircraft types at DWC, including: Ilyushin IL76s, Antonov AN124s,Hercules C130s, Airbus A300Fs, Boeing 747Fs, Boeing 777Fs and the newest freighter in the skies, the Boeing 747-8F which can carry a payload of up to 134 tonnes.
