Last month, the Chengdu bureau of Leader Mutual Freight (LMF) received an emergency request — the procurement, shipment, and delivery of a full jacking panel system from France with a four-day deadline. It was an impossible aircraft-on-ground (AOG) rescue mission, explained the international freight agent who called, but LMF was already on the move.

It started with an incoming call on Nov. 2, 2022: a bird strike wrought unrepairable damage to the jacking panel of the landing gear of an in-flight Airbus A330-243F, and the cargo plane was now grounded until the replacement parts arrived. The A330 model is rare, making its parts even rarer. An extensive search took place before finally locating a new set of compatible jacking panels from an Airbus depot in France. Because this damaged cargo plane was due to fly again on Nov. 7, the LMF task force had just under five days to complete the mission.

By Nov. 3, we were in France to pick up the elusive jacking panel. The package, however, was twice the anticipated volume at 210cm by 117cm by 115cm — too large to fit into any single-aisle aircraft. Instead of reacting with frustration or anger, LMF quickly worked out a backup plan: an air freighter designed to carry outsize cargo was being flown out of Frankfurt by Lufthansa, the flag carrier of Germany, on Nov. 4.

1,200 kilometers stood between the Airbus depot in France, where the jacking panels were stored, and the freight plane scheduled to depart from Frankfurt in 18 hours. The journey required at least 14 hours on the road. It was truly a race against time. Four emergency response plans were immediately presented to the client, who chose the costliest option to guarantee the timely rescue of the grounded Airbus A330-243F. Our orders were clear: “Deliver the package without fail, expenses are a secondary consideration, but lateness was not an option.”

“Mission impossible” was what the international agent called it. Yet LMF managed to pull it off, by putting together an impeccable tas