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AN-124 lands at Auckland Airport carrying 787 engines

written by Adam Thorn | June 30, 2020

Antonov AN-124
An Antonov An-124 at Canberra in November 2006. (Paul Sadler)

An Antonov AN-124 Ruslan landed at Auckland Airport on Saturday to deliver new engines for Air New Zealand’s 787 Dreamliner fleet.

Stuff reports that the enormous Soviet-era jet carried four engines, two were new leases from Rolls-Royce, while the other had undergone maintenance work in Singapore.

The plane belonged to Russian charter company Volga-Dnepr Airlines and is still reportedly parked up at Auckland Airport.

The iconic four-engine plane was created by Antonov Design Bureau in the Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.

With a range of 2,000 nautical miles at maximum payload and a cruising speed of 865km/h, the iconic plane also features 24 wheels.

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Earlier this month, Australian Aviation reported that Air New Zealand will actually offer more capacity on its Auckland-Queenstown route during the July school holidays next month than it did last year.

This is in addition to a broader increase in domestic capacity from 20 to 55 per cent in July and August, including restarting its direct A320 service between Auckland and Invercargill.

Air New Zealand is now operating to all 20 domestic ports it serviced pre-coronavirus and has dropped social distancing in line with the country lowering its coronavirus restrictions to ‘Alert Level 2’.

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