August 12 - Air Charter Service's (ACS) London office recently arranged two charters for a very awkward load from France into Nigeria.

The cargo was fourteen oil pipes, each 12.5 m long, which were urgently needed for an FPSO unit (Floating Production Storage & Offloading) just off the coastal city of Lagos. Some of the pipes weighed almost nine tonnes and had to be hoisted with cranes onto carefully positioned highloaders at Châlons Vatry airport in France and then offloaded in a similar fashion in Lagos.

Ben Dinsdale, senior account manager at ACS said: "It was such an awkward load that some operators had refused to quote on the business, but careful planning from the airline and myself meant that they were able to load it onto two B747-400Fs using two highloaders side by side."