Loading 30 smart cars in a Boeing 747 in less than 60 minutes. A new Guinness Book record for the fastest loading of cars onto aircraft has been set on 23 October 2008 by the express delivery company TNT and the car magazine TopGear at TNT’s air hub in Liège, Belgium. A team of seven people managed to fit 30 smart fortwo in a TNT B747 in 35 minutes and 34 seconds.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the smart car, the most compact car in the world, TopGear Italia, the Italian edition of the leading U.K. magazine and BBC, wondered how many could be fit in the belly of a Boeing B747, one of the world’s largest airplanes.
The 30 smart fortwo were provided by Mercedes-Benz Italia SpA and Mercedes-Benz Belgium Luxembourg SA. Christine Heine, head of ground operations at TNT Liège Hub, who coordinated the operation, said: "One of the critical aspects was to find a suitable time window to try the record, fitting with the arrivals and departures of all the other aircraft scheduled 24 hours on 24, 365 days a year. The take-off time for each TNT aircraft is really imperative, considered its heavy impact on the synchronized network that delivers hundreds of thousands of express parcels anytime, anywhere.
The seven staff had only three hours to load the smart in the Boeing 747, unload them and load the plane with the goods leaving for Shanghai. An incredible result, which celebrates at one hand the professionalism of TNT people who respected their mission ‘sure we can’ and at the other smart fortwo, a special car that in 10 years of life has already obtained many records. The full report on the event is in the December issue of TopGear Italia.
Notes to the editor:
The event took place at TNT’s European air hub in Liège. A total of 1,300 people are employed at the hub, 130 trucks arrive and 47 aircrafts land and take off from and to all over the world, including its two Boeing 747s, the flagship of TNT Express.
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About TNT
TNT provides businesses and consumers worldwide with an extensive range of services for their mail and express delivery needs. Headquartered in the Netherlands, TNT offers efficient network infrastructures in Europe and Asia and is expanding operations worldwide to maximise its network performance. TNT serves more than 200 countries and employs more than 161,500 people. Over 2007, TNT reported €11 billion in revenues and an operating income of €1,192 million. TNT is officially quoted on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. TNT recognises its social responsibility and has formed partnerships with the United Nations World Food Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme to fight hunger and pollution in the world. Our efforts are being recognised; in 2008 TNT again reached the highest score of all companies included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and in the Carbon Disclosure Project in the carbon intensive sector. More information about TNT can be found on its website http://group.tnt.com.
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