Air Charter Service has a whale of a time

Sept. 23, 2010 - PRLog -- The large marine mammals - which can grow up to five metres long – were being flown to China for a new zoo due to be opened in Zhuhai in early 2011. There were five female and three male ‘white whales’ which are naturally found in the Arctic regions only.

The aircraft chartered was an IL-76 – the large cargo aircraft was required as the whales and their tanks weighed a total of 32 tons. Because the aircraft has a non-pressurised cabin it had to fly at a low altitude and had to be temperature regulated. As the cargo was so precious there were eleven cargo attendants in total on board – one for each whale, a head veterinarian, a zoo representative and an ACS representative.

The flight took months to organise as specialist tanks had to be built, and various other issues had to be meticulously planned between the zoo, the airline and ACS.

Gavin Copus, ACS Asia Pacific CEO, said: “The flight went extremely smoothly, and the whales were offloaded really quickly and arrived at their final destination in comfort. This was an impeccably planned operation, and credit must go to all involved.”

Air Charter Service has a long and proud history of livestock flights carrying anything from day old chicks to elephants.

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Air Charter Service is an air charter broker with a global network of 11 offices in North America, Europe, Africa, CIS, the Middle East and Asia.