Mary meets the world’s largest aircraft
Landing of the world’s largest aircraft is impressive itself. On September 1, the employees of the international airport of Mary, the administrative center of the southeastern region of Turkmenistan, observed it. The six-engined Antonov An-225 Mriya is the heaviest aircraft ever built. The airlifter holds the absolute world records for an airlifted total payload of 253,8 tons. It also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service – 88 meters. The length is 84 meters.
The ground infrastructure of the aviation industry of Turkmenistan is capable of receiving and servicing aircraft of all types. Professionalism of specialists, high quality of jet fuel, excellent service and favorable geographic position are the factors that attract large air carriers to Turkmen airports. Ashgabat along with Turkmenbashi, Mary, and Turkmenabat became important transit points.
At same first autumn day, another aircraft – AN-12 belonging to a foreign carrier – made technical landing at the Mary airport. This fellow product of the Antonov design bureau is another legend of aviation, but unlike Mriya, it has a venerable age. Experts consider the AN-12 as one of the outstanding aircraft-long-livers.
In recent years, Turkmenistan has been actively integrating into the global transport and logistics system, increasing the volume of transit traffic and becoming a key logistic player in the Central Asian region.
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