Qantas Freight Essay

Submitted By gocilia
Words: 653
Pages: 3

Refuelling Solutions

Qantas Freight, Melbourne, Australia
After nearly thirty years working for Qantas Freight Melbourne, Freight Equipment Officer, John Colangeli, knows forklifts better than most. He’s worked with them all, electric, diesel, petrol and LPG (propane) but after switching his fleet to CNG five years ago he’d never touch anything else. “Most of our forklifts until then had been electric, but they needed constant attention.” Explaining that the electric forklifts weren’t durable enough he says, “We work the forklifts very hard. They run twenty two hours a day, handling the freight for around ten different airlines and servicing over a hundred truck movements per day. Batteries had to be replaced every two or three years and at two or three thousand dollars each this was proving to be expensive for us. They were a nightmare, I use to hate going away because of all the problems. Now I can go on holiday and sleep well.” When choosing a replacement fuel, Colangeli looked at all the options. After a visit to Qantas’ Sydney freight terminal, where they already had twenty CNG forklifts in operation, Colangeli made a recommendation to switch to CNG, a move he’s clearly glad to have made. “They’re clean, they don’t smell and they’re the most reliable forklifts I’ve had in my thirty years here. Since the switch to CNG we also noticed our costs dropped dramatically.” He now has nineteen CNG forklifts on site currently, ranging from 1.8 to 4.5 tonnes. Like many CNG equipment operators Qantas left the ownership and operation of the Gazpack unit to their gas supplier, in this case Melbourne utility supplier TXU Retail. TXU in turn contracted CompAir to provide and maintain a Gazpack on a turnkey basis. Ask Mr Colangeli about the CompAir Gazpack refueller and you get an enthusiastic response: “It’s great. The installation was no hassle and it takes up less space than our old electric charging station. It’s also probably the quietest piece of equipment on the site. We also have a very good maintenance system provided by CompAir. In all the years we’ve had it there have only been a few small issues, mainly wear and tear. “More importantly it is fast – in, five minutes the tanks are full with enough fuel to last a full shift. We’re very very pleased.”

“The installation was no hassle and it takes up less space than our old electric charging station. It’s also probably the quietest piece of equipment on the site,” John Colangeli, Freight Equipment Officer.

CompAir (Australasia) Ltd 34-40 Ricketts Rd, Mount Waverley,