An airbridge to Uganda
Globalisation on a grand scale. To build a road bridge over the Nile, which is Africa’s and the world’s longest river, the companies need material from Asia – which reaches the site via the Middle East.
Large parts of Africa remain an infrastructural challenge. The government of Uganda is seeking to counter this by building a second road bridge over the White Nile in Jinja, near where it flows out of Lake Victoria. Once completed it is expected to improve transport flows in the northern corridor, which links Uganda with Burundi, Rwanda, eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya. 80% of the USD 125 million needed for the New Jinja Bridge will be supplied by Japan.
The Japanese construction company Zenitaka started building the 500 m cable-stayed bridge two years ago, and expects to complete it in two years. At the end of last year Zenitaka asked Emirates SkyCargo to carry some heavy equipment from Tokyo Narita airport to Entebbe. SkyCargo was asked to haul about 84 t of cargo, consisting of machinery, a winch, a down-the-hole hammer as well as steel parts for the bridge, from Tokyo to the East African country’s main international air cargo gateway.
Emirates SkyCargo operated the charter flight via its hub in Dubai. Ravishankar Mirle, Emirates’ vice-president in charge of commercial cargo operations in the Far East and Australasia, told the media that «we’ve carried many an outsized item over the years, including helicopters, rudders, engines and a yacht’s mast.»
The specialist deployed one of the 13 Boeing B777Fs it has in its fleet, which can carry more than 100 t of cargo per flight. SkyCargo’s fleet of 15 full-freighters, which operates scheduled flights to 50 destinations worldwide, also includes two Boeing B747-400Fs.
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