Just before the weekend arrived, we reported that flypop partnered with Hi Fly to commence LOPA cargo operations with the British startup's Airbus A330 aircraft. The partnership didn't waste any time, as Hi Fly operated a flight with the widebody to deliver bottled water to Iqaluit, Canada.
Vital tasks
On LinkedIn, flypop CEO Nino Singh Judge posted that the twinjet conducted a mission to Iqaluit amid the crisis the Inuit and Nunavummiut communities are facing there. The problems revolve around housing and clean drinking water.
The BBC reports that the area has not had clean water for a month. Notably, a state of emergency was declared on October 12th, and since then, it's been noted that the water is not even safe after boiling.
Remote mission
Initially, registration 9H-POP flew from Beja, Portugal, and crossed the Atlantic all the way to Edmonton, Canada.
The A330 then headed northeast to the remote areas of Canada on November 20th. The temperature in Iqaluit has remained consistently far below 0°C, and the environment has been incredibly frosty, making the flight to the region a challenging task.
Operations underway
flypop has promoted that one of its core goals is to conduct passenger operations between London Stansted and India's secondary cities. There is a sizeable Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom, with many residents having connections to settlements that are presently underserved by commercial airlines from the UK. Rather than the megacities of Delhi and Mumbai, flypop is keen to connect passengers to the likes of Amritsar, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, and Kochi.
Nonetheless, Judge and his team are determined to support freight operations amid an increase in demand in the current climate. The overall industry growth is set to continue in 2022.
“This is another major milestone in the flypop journey as we have inducted the first of our four aircraft,” Judge shared in a company statement.
“We hope our cargo routes will assist with the global demand for cargo and help to alleviate cargo shortages for the Christmas holidays and beyond.”
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Fulfilling demand
So, it’s great to see that while passenger services are yet to launch, the airline is managing to get involved with urgent services such as this delivery to Iqaluit. With the cargo services high on the agenda heading into the new year, we can expect more global freight missions in the coming weeks.
What are your thoughts about flypop’s Airbus A330 aircraft delivering water to Iqaluit, Canada? What do you make of these operations? Let us know what you think about these services in the comment section.