Last Friday, LATAM Cargo carried more than 40 tons of water, food, generators and medicine, among other relief items, from Miami to Puerto Rico in an effort to bring assistance to the country pummeled by Hurricane Maria in September. The 200+ km/h winds caused floods, tore apart homes and cut roads. More than a month after the event, large portions of the island remain without electricity.
Given the magnitude of the disaster, LATAM Cargo activated its Humanitarian Airplane, an initiative that falls under the company’s social responsibility program whose goal is to carry emergency relief to areas struck by natural disasters. As an exception, and at the behest of the “Another Joy Foundation”, the company assigned a cargo B767F to carry the items collected by the foundation. DayGlow Relief, Jet Test and Transport and the Humanitarian Lift Project sponsored this shipment to ensure private aid actually reaches the more isolated parts of the country, thus benefiting more than 150,000 people.
“Not only did we carry donations to the island; we also delivered them in remote areas through the distribution networks set up by our partners. This campaign has become one of the largest movements of non-government air assistance to Puerto Rico,” commented Alden Crowley, President of the Another Joy Foundation.
For his part, LATAM Cargo CEO Andrés Bianchi also referred to the company’s involvement. “We are an air freight company. This fuels our commitment to assist in this type of situations by means of our Solidarity Plane. Indeed, many of our collaborators’ relatives reside in Puerto Rico and have been affected, making this cooperation a symbolic endeavor for us.”
To carry out its contribution through the Solidarity Plane, LATAM Cargo had the support and dedication of a large team made up of CCO Network, LANCO pilots, the warehouse team, Miami Operations, Flight Control Center Colombia and the Legal Area of USA and Colombia, and a mechanic to accompany the transfer of the donations.
LATAM Cargo Solidarity Plane
The initiative is part of the company’s Social Responsibility Program and is activated in the event of natural emergencies and disasters. Once the first request for donation is received, LATAM Cargo checks the routes and slots available to activate the logistic chain required to deliver the relief to those who need it most. The Solidarity Plan has come into action before, for instance during the landslides that hit northern Chile in 2015, the big earthquake of Ecuador in 2016, the great fire of southern Chile in early 2017 and after the floods that struck Peru.
