Air Senegal’s 16 hour flight between Dakar and Beijing is gathering attention in the aviation world as the world’s longest A330neo commercial service to be operated.
The airline on Friday executed the 7641 miles Flight from Beijing to Dakar which was transporting Chinese-donated vaccines from Beijing’s Sinopharm laboratory
Typically air Senegal does operate scheduled flights to Beijing but it’s interesting to know how Air Senegal decided to use its A330-900neo for this service to transport vaccines over the long distance as air cargo demand has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic..
The flight also shows the technical prowess of the A330-900neo aircraft and its position as a solution that allowed cargo operations with the “belly-freight” (the cargo passenger planes traditionally carry below the passenger deck) air cargo capacity.
At the reception ceremony on May 14, 2021 after the aircraft landed at 2:40 p.m., the general manager of Air Senegal highlighted this act taken by a company that wishes to be a Senegalese pride.
Ibrahima Kane explained that with this direct flight: “The vaccines will still keep two days of freshness which will allow the technicians of the national supply pharmacy (PNA) to work calmly on the storage of products and their distribution to the interior of the country.”
By Victor Shalton Odhiambo
