An Cosantóir

19 The route from Dublin took us north of the Isle of Man towards Cumbria and east towards Sunderland, across the North Sea to Jutland and eastwards to Malmo; across the Baltic Sea over Parnü Estonia and then towards St Petersburg. Most of the time flying out and back was spent over Russia and indeed it is a very big country. We flew over a large portion of Siberia, a vast underpopulated area yet quite beautiful with some areas resembling the European Alps. An example of the 'big country' is the flood plain of the river Ob as it flows west and then north from the city of Khanty-Mansiysk. The outer width of the river is similar in distance from Dublin to Galway. In the region to the west of the Ural Mountains, large areas are covered in a network of pipelines and roads associated with gas and oil exploration. The northern Ural Mountains are a defining feature of a global east-west borderline while the Western Altai Mountains mark another boundary, this time between Siberia and Mongolia. Beijing Capital Airport is the largest airport at which I have landed. It is to the east of the city and has three north-south parallel runways. Because of the somewhat intricate layout of the taxiway structure, getting the aircraft to the designated ramp for loading was a challenge in itself. Each aircraft flew east-bound almost empty and returned with every possible area of the aircraft packed with the PPE and, while these were very lightweight commodities, the payload varied between 14 and 25 metric tonnes. For these flights, the passenger seating in the cabin area was specially adapted to contain large packs of PPE. The boxes are wrapped in an outer packaging and were tension-strapped to the seat-row anchor points. It is quite unusual to see an airliner configured like this. The loading process at Beijing Capital Airport PEK (ZBAA) was interesting in itself insofar as it involved two distinct loading teams. The main cargo bays, cargo holds 1,2,3 and 4 were loaded using large hydraulic mobile lifting platforms while cargo hold 5 and the main cabin compartments were loaded by hand, using well-rehearsed teams working in chain and utilising mobile conveyor belts angled upwards to the door platforms. Climbing out of Beijing we crossed the Great Wall and on An Garda Siochana escorts the Defence Forces vehicles carrying the PPE from Dublin Airport PPE being used by an in - coming Cadet after receiving an issue of kit A Defence Forces Navy Covid - 19 test centre where the PPE was distributed and used MY EXPERIENCE OF THE AER LINGUS PPE AIRLIFT FROM CHINA

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