Transport of urgent aircraft spare parts from the USA to South Africa

Our customer PRIMUS Aero GmbH recently contacted us with a particularly urgent request. The Austrian company manages aircraft for customers all over the world and guarantees their maintenance and spare parts procurement. An aircraft was found to have a technical fault during maintenance in South Africa. Because the aircraft had to be deployed promptly, the necessary spare part was needed from the USA as quickly as possible.

The costs of an Aircraft on Ground (AOG) event can quickly spiral. With the particular aircraft already scheduled for a flight, the fastest possible solution had to be found. The missing control unit was in the USA, however, not just around the corner from South Africa. Not a problem for airmates: the relevant PRIMUS employee was able to quickly request a transport by On Board Courier on our airmates platform with just a few clicks and receive a directly bookable quote in less than a minute. On Board Couriers personally accompany particularly time-critical and sensitive shipments as passengers on board of an aircraft. This not only guarantees maximum speed but also maximum reliability.

A few minutes after the booking was made, John, the selected courier, set off to pick up the urgent spare part in Addison, Texas. He is one of more than 12,000 couriers available in over 50 countries for your time:matters airmates service. John lives in Dallas, so he did not have long to travel to the company holding the missing spare part. At 2 PM local time, he had the control unit in his hands. Being so close to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the courier was already sitting on the plane to Atlanta at 3:45 PM local time.

There he made his connecting flight to Johannesburg and landed punctually at OR Tambo International Airport at 5:35 PM local time (+1 day). Because John could carry the spare part as hand luggage, he didn’t lose any time at the baggage claim desk and made his way directly to the unairworthy aircraft after customs clearance. This was located at a smaller airport to the north of the city (Lanseria International Airport), so the courier travelled the last part by taxi and handed over the control unit to the technician eagerly awaiting it.

In only 25 hours, the urgent spare part was transported from Addison, Texas, USA to Lanseria International Airport, Johannesburg, South Africa, where it was received with great relief. Our customer PRIMUS was very satisfied, as always: “airmates is really innovative! The platform only takes one minute to produce a quote that can be booked directly – it doesn’t get any faster than that!”