BOLLORÉ HOOKS UP WITH FLYING WHALES

Bolloré Logistics has signed a memorandum of understanding with France-headquartered aeronautics company Flying Whales to use its LCA6OT airship for the transport of abnormal loads.

The MoU was inked at this year’s Breakbulk Europe event in Rotterdam.

The LCA6OT is a 200-meter-long hybrid-electric airship that will be deployed to lift and transport up to 60 tonnes of cargo. The first of the fleet will leave the production line by the end of 2025, with operations slated to start in late 2026, early 2027, once certification has been obtained.

Bolloré said the “game-changing solution” would give customers a wider range of more sustainable transport options. The forwarder, also headquartered in France, has pledged to cut carbon emissions as part of its CSR program “Powering Sustainable Logistics,” launched in 2018.

“We are particularly proud of this agreement with Flying Whales,” said Philippe Lejeune, energy and projects director at Bolloré Logistics Europe. “Deliveries by LCA60T will enable us to provide our customers with an extensive choice of vehicles in order to decarbonize the transport of the goods they entrust us with.”

Speaking to Breakbulk, Habiba Idiri, sales manager at Flying Whales, said its airship concept, which is in its final engineering phase, would transform the way breakbulk and project cargo were delivered. The company is aiming to have 160 units in operation by 2033.

Idiri said a key advantage of the LCA60T was its ability to load and unload while remaining airborne, meaning it could be deployed to deliver to remote and hard-to-reach locations such as mountain tops or disaster zones.

“We do not land to load the cargo, which allows us to reach remote places with no or very poor infrastructure,” Idiri said. “If we take the wind industry as an example, the blades require a lot of modifications of the road and a lot of handling by the blade lifter, which add to the project’s footprint. Whereas our concept will pick the blade up from a port or other site and deliver directly to the wind farm.”

In addition to energy and construction industries, the airship could also be deployed in humanitarian and disaster relief. “We can provide a response to supply logistics and other cargo currently carried by helicopter, boat or plane.” The airship, which is expected to run on a fully-electric system by 2028, will be produced in France at Flying Whales’ manufacturing facility in Gironde, as well as at sites in Quebec and in the Asia-Pacific region. Bolloré Logistics is an exhibitor at Breakbulk events. The next event in the calendar is Breakbulk Americas 2023 on September 26-28 at the George R. Brown Conference Center in Houston, Texas. Registration for the event is now open