Antonov Airlines is celebrating its 30th anniversary and is looking forward to continued success in the outsize and breakbulk air cargo market.

Since its founding in 1989, the company has pioneered the air transportation of outsize and heavy cargo across the globe, and holds the record for the heaviest single piece of cargo transported by plane.

“As we look back on 30 years of Antonov Airlines, and the projects that we have completed, we see one of our strengths is the flexibility of our business to adapt to changing markets,” said Graham Witton, managing director of Antonov Airlines. “We are transporting more outsize cargo than ever before, anything from wind turbine components to city centre trams, and practically anything in between. We are also moving further into the aerospace industry as digital communications become more integral in the global economy.”

Antonov Airlines is the international transportation division of Antonov Company, the Ukrainian aircraft design bureau behind aircraft such as the An-22, An-124, as well as the An-225, which has a payload of 250 tonnes and is the largest aircraft in the world.

On August 11, 2009, the An-225 transported a generator with a total payload of 187.6 tonnes from Frankfurt to Yerevan, setting the record for the heaviest single piece of air cargo ever transported.

“When the business first started, many items such as satellite containers, generators and transformers were too big or too heavy to fly on conventional freighters,” said Paul Furlonger, director of Antonov Airlines. “Antonov Airlines, as the first commercial operator of the An-124-100, had to quickly pioneer methods of loading using great creativity and flexibility. At the beginning, we were doing things for the first time, almost every time, and over the years, after many thousands of flights, our processes have become more refined and our expertise enhanced so that we now undertake ever more challenging and complex projects with absolute confidence.”

Antonov Airlines has offices in London and Houston.