At the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic during March 2020, Leader Mutual Freight’s (LMF) branch offices in China began coordinating shipments of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical goods around the world by air. Within the next 3 months, 36 chartered planes successfully landed in Europe, North America, Central America, and South America with aid and health supplies.

When LMF was first approached by overseas pharmaceutical companies regarding chartered flights for pandemic goods, our branch offices across China immediately convened to strategize: the priority was to ensure the timely delivery of their orders despite the multiple disruptions to the global supply chain wrought by the COVID-19 crisis.

Drawing upon the company’s forty-plus years of logistics management, LMF began by centralizing operations for taking overseas orders, and then working with the different factories in China to keep abreast of their manufacturing schedule. Special attention were paid to all aspects of the process, from deploying trucks for transport to managing warehouses, charting aviation routes, expediting customs inspection and clearance, palletizing air freight, and escorting the goods as they were loaded from ramp to plane.

LMF’s one-stop service for air freight stems from the company’s extensive expertise in chartering planes for local and international destinations. For the overseas delivery of pandemic goods, we chose to work with cargo aircrafts including the Antonov-124, Boeing’s B747F, B789, and B777, and the Airbus family’s A333, A320, A319J, and A332.

There are no substitutes for experience: the ability to conduct such assignments comes from LMF’s familiarity with processing exports and rock-solid ties with various customs agencies. With the completion of 36 multi-leg chartered flights under 3 months, a new milestone has been achieved.