High in Hörsching
Linz Hörsching regional airport has secured a strong role for itself in the logistics region stretching between Vienna, Munich and Prague. This resulted in it handling a record number of widebody freighters last year, including the world’s largest aeroplane – thrice.
One of the results of the many measures implemented to combat the outbreak of Covid-19 have lead to the Antonov AN-225 becoming something of a regular at Linz airport – after a long wait. On 5 October 2021 the world’s largest and heaviest aeroplane landed at Linz Hörsching for the second time – 18 years after the first, thus ensuring that the hub in Upper Austria overtook continental competitors Paris CDG, London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Munich. At that time not many people suspected that two more visits would follow in the last month of the year.
Transfers to lorries
Dachser chartered the aeroplane several times, to fly in goods for the Tyrolean trader Balmung Medical. One batch left the Chinese city of Tianjin on 6 December, landing at Linz in the early hours of 8 December. Directly after it touched down the entire cargo that it had transported was transferred to no less than 20 lorries in a very tight time frame and under strict adherence with all of the many measures implemented to combat the outbreak of Covid-19.
Cedrik Schmoll, Dachser’s airfreight import manager, said that “handling charter flights is a standard service that we offer our air cargo clients – but a transport this size was rather special in every way, even for us.” The services provider also arranged for the on-forwarding of the important consignments by road haulage from the airport to Brandenburg (Germany).
Besides the AN-225 triple, its ‘little sister’, the almost equally impressive Antonov AN-124, also landed at the airport on the Danube 16 times last year – as often as Boeing B747Fs operated by various charter services providers.
These came in addition to Turkish Cargo’s regular visits; scheduled twice-weekly Airbus A330F and weekly Boeing B777F links were launched just as Covid-19 broke out in April 2020.
Thus the hub registered visits from almost 150 widebody freighters in 2021, plus DHL Express Austria B757F services – five a week, destined for Leipzig, Brussels and Belgrade.
