Antonov Airlines has carried out its first charter operation from its new UK headquarters at London Stansted Airport.

The company used one of its An-124-100 freighters to transport a British-manufactured helicopter to Southeast Asia.

“It is a wonderful coincidence that one of the UK office’s first operations should take place on its doorstep,” said Paul Bingley, commercial manager of Antonov Airlines. “Such close proximity allowed us, not only to successfully test our specially designed loading equipment, but also to work much more closely with our customer. You could say we arrived at the right place at the right time.”

The Antonov Company terminated Ruslan International, its An-124-100 joint venture company with Volga-Dnepr Airlines, at the end of 2016, and announced that a new team in the UK would be in charge of global sales and operations of the aircraft.

“Our team in Kiev was pleased to work closely with our UK office for this move,” said Andriy Blagovisniy, head of commercial development at Antonov Airlines. “Our in-house engineering expertise meant we were able to deliver an expert solution for this aerospace customer and we look forward to supporting many more companies in the defence, energy, humanitarian, industrial, automotive, and oil and gas sectors.”

Antonov Airlines began offering the 150-tonne payload of the An-124-100 more than 28 years ago and has seven in its fleet. It also operates the An-225, which has a payload of 250 tonnes and is the largest aircraft in the world.