History
The airline was established and started operations in 1989 through a marketing agent agreement with Air Foyle to market Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo charters worldwide. This relationship ended in June 2006. The same month Antonov Airlines and another large player in the global specialty air cargo business, Volga-Dnepr Airlines (Russia), established a joint venture company — Ruslan International — where each company has a 50% stake. The joint operation of the Ukrainian and Russian fleets allow to maximize the utilization of the combined An-124-100 commercial fleet (seven freighters belong to Antonov Airlines and ten are owned by Volga-Dnepr Airlines) and the only existing Antonov An-225 — the largest cargo aircraft in the world.
Among the most notable cargo delivered by Antonov Airlines are the following:
- An 88 ton water turbine for the Tashtakumska Hydroelectric Plant from Kharkov to Tashkent;
- Civil engineering vehicles to deal with the consequences of the earthquake in Spitak, Armenia;
- Vehicles and systems for resolving the Persian Gulf crisis (mine clearance bulldozers, mobile electric stations, special mine, and oil-clearing boats, humanitarian assistance);
- A 135.2 ton Siemens generator from Düsseldorf, Germany to Delhi, India was air-lifted by An-225;
- Nuclear fuel in special containers from Habaniya, Iraq to Yekaterinburg (Russia) under the United Nations program for disarmament of Iraq;
- A 102 ton locomotive from London, Canada to Dublin, Ireland;
- A 70 ton generator was flown to Lahore, Pakistan from Doncaster Robin Hood, United Kingdom for power station needs;
- A 187.6 ton power plant generator from Frankfurt-Hahn Airport, Germany to Yerevan (listed in the Guinness Book of Records)
- A 95 ton Putzmeister concrete pump from the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport to Japan to assist with the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant
Read more about this topic: Antonov Airlines
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