AN-225 / Mriya is at service in COVID19 fight

The AN-225, the Mriya. It has been tasked with COVID-19 support flights. The world’s biggest plane joins the fight against coronavirus. The AN-225 was on maintenance and modernization work for 18 months, and now it is in operation. After modernization and maintenance, the AN-225 made his first test flight on 25.03.2020.

There were already five AN-124s on the mission for cargo flights from China to Europe, and by 11 April 2020, the Mriya joined them.

KGHM, a Polish multinational company, chartered the Mriya for a medical supply mission. KGHM said seven million masks, several hundred thousand coveralls, and several hundred thousand helmets would be transported by the Mriya.

Mainly the AN-225 will transport medical supplies from China to Europe. On 11.04.2020 Mriya departed from Kiev Hostomel Airport, after refuel stop on Almaty/Kazakhstan landed to Tianjin International Airport /China.
According to authorities it took 15 hours to load the Mriya with medical cargo.

The only completed An-225 Mriya was destroyed during the Battle of Antonov Airport in February 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Maximum takeoff weight of Mriya is 640,000 kg and the volume capacity of the Mriya is 1,300 meters cube. this mission is a piece of cake for AN225.

The Mriya has 32 wheels and 6 engines. In addition, the wingspan of Mriya is 88.4 meters and the length is 84 meters. The Mriya is one and only operational aircraft of its type and dates back to the Soviet era, went under the codename of ‘Cossack’ during the cold war.

The first flight of AN-225 was in December 1988. Construction of a second aircraft was in progress when the Soviet Union collapsed, and it is still in a storage facility in an uncompleted condition in Kiev today.

Operational Perspective

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the An-225 became strategically important not only because of its size, but also because global air cargo capacity had sharply declined due to widespread passenger flight cancellations. Since passenger aircraft normally transport a significant portion of worldwide freight in their lower cargo holds, the aviation industry faced severe logistics bottlenecks during the early stages of the pandemic.

In this environment, ultra-large cargo aircraft such as the An-225 provided critical lift capability for oversized and high-volume medical shipments, helping governments and healthcare systems rapidly move emergency supplies across continents.

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