Issues surrounding an “inappropriate maintenance record” discovered on June 16th has caused the entire fleet of aircraft to be grounded by the Japanese carrier, Nippon Cargo Airlines (NCA). According to an official statement from NCA, the grounding is expected to last for over a week as aviation officials conduct an independent safety audit of the eleven 747 freighter aircraft. Discrepancies and inconsistencies in the maintenance records alerted inspectors that something was amiss and flights could be unsafe.
Unfortunately this is not the first issue NCA has had with maintenance records as NCA was found to have omitted other incidents where damages had occurred to aircraft back in May. Between the voluntary grounding and following audit, NCA is working with their internal personnel to take disciplinary action toward those involved with the record keeping mistakes.
The original estimation was for the fleet to be out of commission for only a week, but industry experts have determined that’s a very optimistic assessment. The best case scenario for a return to full capacity appears to be two to three weeks, leaving shippers in a lurch as already tight air capacity reaches a stranglehold. While larger forwarders have made outside arrangements, it’s a major disruption that everyone will feel.
We at Nelson International understand the very delicate balance that forwarders must maintain when dealing in air freight and want to assure our customers we’re watching this situation very closely to ensure the best routings are being used to keep cargo moving on time. We hope to update this story soon with good news.
Comments are closed.