One of the largest planes in the world landed for the first time at Mirabel airport on Saturday, where it will transit more and more often to meet the growing need for transport of large goods.
The Airbus Beluga ST put on quite a show for aviation observers and residents of Mirabel airport by landing at 1:13 p.m. Saturday afternoon to refuel with kerosene.
The Beluga ST arriving at Mirabel airport on Saturday.
Patrick Desrochers
The aircraft with the largest fuselage in the world was returning from Orlando, where it delivered a satellite that will play a crucial role in the space mission aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which will take off in a few weeks from Kennedy Space Center.
The aircraft must return to Toulouse in France, from where it took off to begin its delivery. It is also in this city that the satellite was built by Airbus.
This visit is reminiscent of the time when the Antonov 225 also landed in Mirabel in 2020 to deliver medical equipment in the midst of a pandemic. The largest plane in the world at the time, the Ukrainian aircraft was destroyed in 2022 during the war launched by Russia.
He will often be at our house
Beluga STs, which were historically used to transport Airbus aircraft parts in Europe, have been made available over the past two years for commercial transport.
Indeed, the weakening of Antonov during the war in Ukraine created a need in this small air transport market for very large parts.
“When we saw the destruction of the Antonov 225, we saw a lack of capacity in the air sector for the transport of large, very large or very heavy products,” explains John Gradek, director of the aviation management program. from McGill University.
Patrick Desrochers
Reza Fazlollahi, head of sales and contracts for the carrier Airbus Beluga, maintains that these large aircraft will be called upon more and more often to land at Mirabel over the coming years, particularly due to the growing needs of the space industry in the United States. -United.
“Mirabel is the gateway between the transatlantic, between Europe and North America, where we will need to make technical stops to refuel with kerosene.”
“We have the North American market which is a big market foroversized [marchandises volumineuses]. Clearly, Mirabel for us is a strategic area in which we will develop more and more,” continues Mr. Fazlollahi.