The request
An operator had an aircraft on ground at a regional airport awaiting a rotable component available only from a stockist on another continent. Published AOG cost figures for narrow-body aircraft run to five figures per hour, so the commercial pressure was immediate. The scope: source confirmation, export and import customs, air freight, and delivery to the aircraft.
- Situation: aircraft on ground, single critical component required
- Cargo: rotable aircraft part with export-controlled documentation
- Route: intercontinental origin to a regional Nigerian airport
- Constraint: operator's return-to-service window of 72 hours from despatch
How it was worked
The desk verified part number, condition and certification paperwork with the stockist before committing to a routing — a part that arrives with wrong traceability documents is not a delivery, it is a second delay. Customs documentation for both export and import was prepared while the part was being packed, not after it landed.
Two routings were quoted. The faster on paper involved a tight connection at a congested hub; the desk selected a routing eight hours longer with a robust connection, because in AOG work a missed connection costs a full day, not an hour. The shipment was tracked with milestone alerts, and a broker was pre-positioned at destination.
The result
The part despatched on day one, cleared customs on arrival without a documentation query, and was delivered airside on day two — inside the operator's 72-hour window. The aircraft returned to service on the revised schedule the operator had published to its own customers.
The pattern this case illustrates: AOG logistics is a documentation discipline first and a transport problem second. The shipment that clears customs is the one whose paperwork moved before the box did.