Flown by Atlas Air, Panalpina's second Boeing 747-8F enters service

THE second of two brand-new Boeing 747-8 Freighters enters scheduled service within Panalpina's own controlled air freight network in Panalpina livery to Atlas Air, Inc at Boeing's manufacturing facility in Everett, Washington.

The 747-8F, named Passion for Solutions, took off from Paine Field in Everett near Seattle and flew to Huntsville, Alabama and then to Luxembourg via London-Stansted with its first cargo.

In September 2011, Panalpina and Atlas Air, a leading global provider of outsourced aircraft and aviation operating services, signed a wet-lease agreement for two 747-8Fs to replace two previous generation 747-400Fs.

Panalpina is the only freight forwarder with its owned controlled network besides regular air freight product offerings and global charter programmes. The network acts as an in-house carrier to the whole Panalpina network, said a statement from the carrier.

It has been designed to offer capacities and solutions in routings required by customers across various industries that cannot be covered by commercial carriers in the air freight market. Roughly 20 per cent of Panalpina's global air freight volumes are handled by the own controlled network. The remaining volumes are procured with commercial carriers.