Aircraft on Ground: A Hot-Shipment from Prague to Brussels

A wide-body aircraft was grounded on the apron at Prague Airport with a defective shielded assembly. With the airliner AOG - Aircraft on Ground - every hour meant cancelled rotations, stranded passengers and penalties running into tens of thousands of euros.

The certified replacement - a fragile ACTC assembly - was released mid-afternoon, but the maintenance slot at the Brussels hangar was booked for the next morning. No scheduled service could cover the ~880 km in the window, and the part demanded careful handling and an unbroken chain of custody.

We triggered our AOG protocol the moment the call came in: a dedicated sprinter was rolling within 15 minutes, the fragile-flagged box was collected under a signed handover, and the driver departed straight for Brussels on a non-stop routing.

Dispatch tracked the vehicle live the whole way and updated the airline's maintenance control centre at every checkpoint, so the crew could stage the repair before the part even arrived. The assembly reached the hangar overnight - with the maintenance slot still open.