Astral Aviation is expanding its network in Asia ! After selecting Sharjah Airport as its Middle East hub, its looking to operate in new routes gradually.
Today, the Freighter operator took off its inaugural flight from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport Mumbai, India to Sanaa International Airport, Yemen with three distinct vaccine shipments.
The B727-200F aircraft was loaded with 19.5 tonnes of vaccines were from Serum Institute of India.
The cargo operator received clearance from Indian regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to carry vaccines for UNICEF and Expanded Program On Immunization (EPI) MOPH in collaboration with Kuehne+Nagel.
On the inaugural flight, Sanjeev Gadhia, CEO and founder, Astral Aviation, said,
“Astral has never operated any flights to and from India which has been served via interline partners. During the pandemic, due to lack of direct capacity and connectivity between India and Africa, Astral has received a number of requests for the transportation of Covid-19 vaccines and pharma to and within Africa which are originating from Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
"Today’s inaugural flight offers new opportunities for Astral's clients to move freight from India via Astral’s Nairobi hub, and we look forward to operate more charters in 2021 due to the high demand for medical cargo.”
The Astral Aviation B727-200F aircraft arrived in Mumbai on April 18th from Nairobi via Muscat . However, On return, it will go through a long route to reach yemen. the routing will be Mumbai - Oman - Djibouti - Sanaa.
A technical stop is required at Oman before proceeding to Dijibouti, and at Dijibouti, a security stop is required for aircrafts flying humanitarian cargo before heading to Yemen.
Earlier, Astral aviation has carried out around 300 charters flights for the humanitarian sector into Aden and Sanaa, using a fleet of B727-200F, DC9F, CRJ200PF and Fokker 27 aircrafts.
