The
airport was Kolkata. The night was dark in the month of August, 2011. The
atmosphere was full of expectation, but very little nervousness for Bhadra
International’s well-trained Cargo Handlers. The reason was simply the size
of the cargo. The mammoth cargo was for the construction of Ampara dam in Uttarakhand.
But Bhadra
Cargo Handlers had done that before.
A
Russian Antonov aircraft, which is used to transport oversized cargo across the
world, was scheduled to touch down with heavy engineering equipment from China
late night. The freighter was bringing gigantic steel frames for the
under-construction Ampara dam in Uttarakhand, the second one after the first
was brought by the same aircraft on July 13.
Anup
Chowdhury who heads the ground handling operations of Bhadra International at
Kolkata airport narrated the story. "The 226-ft long, 68-ft-wide Flywell
Airways plane with 240-ft wing span, was carrying super-heavy cargo requiring
100 tonne crane to unload." The private operator, Bhadra International,
took over the import section of the cargo terminal on December 20, 2010, and
the import section on Thursday, August 11, 2011.
Acknowledging that handling the
mammoth plane with its giant cargo was a big challenge, Chowdhury said the
operations on July 13 had provided invaluable experience to the 300-odd men in
the Bhadra team.
Bhadra International is
now handling all airlines that transport cargo - Emirates, Lufthansa, Air India, Air Asia, Biman Bangladesh, China Eastern, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Qatar Airways and also Jade.
Although under a new policy, Bhadra International has a clear mandate
to provide Ground-handling services for
passenger flights also (along with national carrier Air India), it is yet to
get the go-ahead from Airports Authority of India (AAI) following resistance from
private carriers and unions, who are creating all kind of hurdles in the
implementation of the AAI policy enacted by the country’s esteemed parliament
several years ago.
