In 2002 Air Charter Service received a rather strange request – to fly sand to Egypt! Why on earth would they need more?
Ruan Courtney, now the company’s COO, explains: “I received a call from my Italian customer saying that he needed to transport 13 tons of sand from Rome to Cairo. We had a bit of a laugh at first but, when we dug a little deeper, we found out that it was a special type of sand used for glass making.
“It was urgently needed by a company based in Cairo; Egyptian sand was the wrong type and they couldn’t source any similar sand nearby.
“So we arranged a Russian-built AN-12 and, as soon as we received all the necessary permits, we performed the flight. The customer was delighted and the thought of the initial enquiry always makes me chuckle!”
