Touching down the cargo on time

The background

Our client, a company headquartered in Europe, operates one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive port and inland services networks. They are uniquely positioned in 75 ports around the globe to service both shipping lines and their customers by efficiently handling over 34,000 vessels and 12 million containers annually.

The challenge

On 23 May 2021, a blown-out transformer crippled the operations in our customer’s Moin Terminal in Costa Rica. They had a lead time of 6 weeks to replace it. The outage cost them USD 1 million per day. Facing a loss of over USD 40 million simply wasn’t an option, so they turned to the Maersk Air Freight team for a solution. The customer was able to find a supplier in the US who could build the replacement transformers and have them ready to ship in 6 days; however, they were too large to fit on a commercial aircraft.

The solution

The customer’s partnership with Maersk helped them face their challenges head-on. On short notice, Maersk was able to charter an Antonov AN124 – a large Russian-made aircraft with an integrated crane system that could handle the massive 20-ton transformers. Immediately after the transformers were ready on 31 May, trucking permits were secured to move the cargo from the manufacturer in Pennsylvania to the BWI Airport in Baltimore, Maryland, where the aircraft and ground crew were waiting to load. The flight departed that same evening and arrived around midnight. By morning, the precious cargo had been delivered in full and in pristine condition to the Moin Terminal where installation took place immediately, allowing operations to resume within 2 days.

The result

With our Air Freight solutions, our customer saved millions of dollars and effectively served their clients who had been impacted by the outage. From the supplier to our client— their local management teams all the way to their CEO— were happy with the air charter solution. They expressed their satisfaction by commending what they described as a "Herculean effort". "Kudos, you have set the new standard, at least for Costa Rica, on efficiency and delivery under emergency conditions,” they said.