Case Study – Air Freight Charter from Europe to Indonesia

A major customer in Indonesia awarded deugro (Singapore) Pte Ltd an air freight charter from Europe to Indonesia. However, this air freight charter, which at first glance seemed like another daily operation for deugro, actually involved a series of challenges and special transport pre-arrangements. The client made clear from the very beginning that the over 95 tons of cargo had to arrive at the construction site in northern Sumatra, Indonesia in early January, just days after the transformers were expected to be released from the factory in Finland. The shipment consisted of two transformers, weighing 36 tons each, plus accessories out of Vaasa, Finland and two five-ton rectifiers coming out of Baden, Switzerland.

deugro was only able to secure the shipment by working as a team with our air freight office in Singapore and our colleagues in Finland, who worked on the overland freight. After evaluating various options, we proposed to the client that we would consolidate both shipments in Helsinki and arrange for a combined air charter to Kuala Namu, Indonesia. Because of the transformer’s dimensions (4.9m x 2.5m x 3.3 meters each), we needed to use an Antonov AN-124-100 aircraft. The remaining capacity of this open-plan aircraft would fit the five-ton rectifiers from Switzerland perfectly. During planning and execution, this solution proved to be the most cost-effective for our client.