newstodate.aero
Apr 09, 2014 (newstodate): 240 tonnes of air cargo lifted by a new generation of "zeppeliners" at unit-costs corresponding to trucked cargo: not a joke, confirms Icelandair Cargo's managing director.
Speaking at the Nordic Air Cargo Symposium 2014 in Stockholm yesterday, he outlined the visions from the MoU signed with Aeroscraft Corporation aiming at forming a strategic partnership to provide a new airfreight logistics in the Arctic regions using a new VTOL cargo airship with the capacity to lift 40 feet containers.
-We have been working with Aeroscraft for two years now, many issues are still unanswered, and there is of course a possibility that this will never materialize, says Gunnar Mar Sigurfinsson, Icelandair Cargo Managing Director.
-The plan is to launch this in year 2016, but I would rather find it likely that this would start to operate after five years. We are still only investigating how we can be part of this and many questions still remain to be answered.
-The airships will operate independently from any airport and other infrastructure, capable of picking up the loads at the shipper's premises and unload them at the conseignee's site. This will provide unheard-of services to outlying districts serving for instance oil exploration of mining companies, and the airship will have the capacity to ply from Iceland to the UK and back again within 24 hours.
-There are no final decision made yet and no decision about how, when and if we will be part of this, so the Board has so far not been obliged to take any decision, and no financial commitments are made from our side at this point.
-However, the Aeroscraft airship would be a true game-changer in the industry and we expect a lot from this venture, says Mr Sigurfinsson.
Speaking at the Nordic Air Cargo Symposium 2014 in Stockholm yesterday, he outlined the visions from the MoU signed with Aeroscraft Corporation aiming at forming a strategic partnership to provide a new airfreight logistics in the Arctic regions using a new VTOL cargo airship with the capacity to lift 40 feet containers.
-We have been working with Aeroscraft for two years now, many issues are still unanswered, and there is of course a possibility that this will never materialize, says Gunnar Mar Sigurfinsson, Icelandair Cargo Managing Director.
-The plan is to launch this in year 2016, but I would rather find it likely that this would start to operate after five years. We are still only investigating how we can be part of this and many questions still remain to be answered.
-The airships will operate independently from any airport and other infrastructure, capable of picking up the loads at the shipper's premises and unload them at the conseignee's site. This will provide unheard-of services to outlying districts serving for instance oil exploration of mining companies, and the airship will have the capacity to ply from Iceland to the UK and back again within 24 hours.
-There are no final decision made yet and no decision about how, when and if we will be part of this, so the Board has so far not been obliged to take any decision, and no financial commitments are made from our side at this point.
-However, the Aeroscraft airship would be a true game-changer in the industry and we expect a lot from this venture, says Mr Sigurfinsson.