Third NCA 747-400F arrives for maintenance before reentering CMI service with Atlas

The third and final 747-400F (36133) to be reactivated by Nippon Cargo Airlines (NCA) arrived in Taipei (TPE) at around 16:10 local time today, ahead of planned maintenance at the Evergreen Aviation Technologies Corp. (EGAT) facility at the airport. The aircraft was ferried from Victorville (VCV), where it had been stored since November 2018, to Los Angeles (LAX) yesterday.

Another NCA 747-400F (36135) is also currently undergoing maintenance at EGAT, having arrived in TPE on 11 June. Completion is expected imminently. Both units 36133 and 36135 will be operated by Atlas Air for NCA when they return to service, joining unit 36132, which entered service with Atlas in April 2019 as part of an expanded agreement with Atlas.

Under that agreement, announced in January this year, Atlas expanded its CMI agreement with NCA from two to five 747-400Fs, with the aircraft expected to enter service in April, July and September 2019 [FATs 004760-004762]. Atlas announced the first CMI deal with NCA in December 2016 and the second in August 2017.

Last summer, NCA was forced to ground its entire fleet of three 747-400Fs and eight 747-8Fs when the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau discovered inconsistencies in the carrier’s maintenance records. The incident prompted NCA to focus its own operations and maintenance on the 747-8F platform, handing over the remaining three -400Fs to Atlas.