The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), Airbus and the Spanish Red Cross have delivered together a load of humanitarian goods from Seville, Spain, to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Asia Pacific Regional Office in Malaysia. The relief supplies will be used to prevent malaria outbreaks following future natural disasters in the region. The collaboration has been facilitated by the Airbus Foundation and utilised the delivery flight of the fourth A400M to the RMAF.
From left to right: Ana Alvarez Munoz, Head of Airbus Defence & Space, Malaysia, Brigadier-General Dato’ Yazid Arshad, Head of Staff Operations, RMAF, Major-General Dato’ Mohd Faudzi Ahmad, Commander of Air Region 1, RMAF, Dato’ Sayed Abdul Rahman, Secretary-General, Malaysian Red Crescent Society, Alka Kapoor Sharma, Head of Regional Logistics Unit, APAC Region, IFRC, Riku Assamaki, Regional Logistics Coordinator, IFRC, Andy Cheng, Services Sales Director, Military Aircraft, Airbus Defence and Space
General Dato’ Sri Affendi Buang Chief of RMAF said:
For the Royal Malaysian Air Force humanitarian missions are a key part of our mission and we have invested considerable training and resources to ensure that we are fully able to assist in the event of a natural disaster anywhere in the region,.
Fernando Alonso, Head of Military Aircraft Airbus Defence and Space, added:
We are delighted that this delivery flight to the Royal Malaysian Air Force has carried a load of humanitarian goods for the Red Cross. This will certainly be the first of many HADR missions, for which this aircraft is designed and ideally suited and we look forward to further support this in the future.
The RMAF’s fourth A400M delivers first humanitarian cargo to Malaysia.
Andrea Debbane, Executive Director of the Airbus Foundation, said:
Partnerships are the backbone of the Foundation’s work and it is always especially good to bring our Airbus customers together with our NGO partners. Through our humanitarian flight programme, we are setting a really important standard for the wider collaboration of commercial organisations and NGOs.
With its unique capabilities to fly further, faster and with heavy loads, while operating from short and soft unpaved airstrips, the A400M is ideally adapted to the geographical conditions in the Asia Pacific region for disaster relief and humanitarian missions.