AeroLift Cargo
10th in a Series: A US Based Heavy Cargo Carrier
AeroLift Cargo Airlines is an aviation company headquartered in the Central Cargo area of Houston-George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). The company specializes in providing heavy and outsized air cargo services to the public and private sector both within the United States and internationally.
Besides its primary base at Houston-IAH, AeroLift also maintains standard cargo management facilities at Miami-MIA, Los Angeles-LAX, Shannon-SNN, Brisbane-BNE and Sharjah-SHJ, plus a smaller cargo loading and transfer station at Honolulu-HNL and Guam-GUM.
History
Startup
AeroLift Cargo Airlines was founded by Richard Agee, a wealthy Houston-based petroleum company executive. Mr Agee worked for several years in the company’s logistics division of Tydol Petroleum, one of the world’s largest oil companies, where he had been responsible for sourcing and shipping oil rig hardware to company facilities around the world. Frustrated with the use of railroads to ship larger oilfield components, he saw an acute need for larger aircraft capable of carrying oversized payloads, both for the oil industry and in other economic sectors.
To answer that need, Mr Agee left Tydol in February 1994, obtained hangar space at Houston-IAH airport, and established AeroLift Cargo Airlines. He began with a hand-me-down Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules Freighter, a civilian version of the iconic Lockheed C-130 Hercules strategic airlifter. The L-100’s short takeoff and landing (STOL) capabilities and its ability to use rough airstrips made it an excellent choice for delivering large payloads to austere worksites and smaller airports. While the shipping cost would be higher, Mr Agee reckoned the higher speed of delivery would more than make up for the cost. He soon found plenty of demand for his services, and bought two additional L-100s to answer the market.
In early 1995 Mr Agee took out a loan to purchase a secondhand Boeing 747-200F Freighter from an Asian cargo airline, to answer demand for still larger payload freight requirements. The 747-200F’s front-loading door below the cockpit and its higher payload limit further augmented AeroLift’s ability to move heavy equipment across greater distances, thereby giving the company intercontinental capabilities.
Antonov An-124 and Ilyushin Il-76 Acquisitions
Thanks to savvy marketing appearances at various industrial trade shows, AeroLift Cargo continued to prosper.
At one of those trade shows, the 1997 Paris Air Show, Mr Agee had occasion to meet with officials from the Antonov Design Bureau of Ukraine, who introduced him to one of their flagship products, the Antonov An-124. Mr Agee signed an agreement to purchase two refurbished former military grade An-124s to be refitted with General Electric CF6-80C2 engines, each rated at 59,200 lbf (263 kN), which were used on the largest American jets like the Boeing 747 and McDonnell Douglas MD-11. Maintenance support was to be provided by Antonov, while AeroLift would serve as the General Sales Agent for the Antonov Design Bureau in the Americas.
AeroLift took delivery of its first Antonov An-124-100M, named Katya, in March 1998, and hired a collective of Ukrainian and Russian pilots to fly them. The 2nd aircraft, named Nadiya, arrived the following September.
A year later in May 1999, AeroLift acquired a single Ilyushin Il-76TD freighter, which was named Oksana.
Boeing 747-400ERs Enter The Fleet
From 2003 onwards, the carrier began to take delivery of several Boeing 747-400ERFs, which had both front-loading and side-loading capabilities. In keeping with the tradition started with naming the An-124s using feminine Ukrainian names, the 747-400ERFs were given feminine American names - Alexa, Briana, Caitlin, Daphne, Ella, etc. Most of these 747-400ERFs were put on regularly scheduled transcontinental and intercontinental cargo routes.
The company’s older Boeing 747-200F continued flying ad hoc charter operations for the company before it was finally retired in 2010.
Disaster Relief Missions
AeroLift Cargo earned considerable international praise for its quick and excellent response to several natural disasters that occurred during the 2000s and 2010s.
In the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, AeroLift was pressed into service providing robust assistance to the nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. During the chaotic 2005 Hurricane Season, AeroLift Cargo was instrumental in providing medevac and airlift services throughout the southeastern US, particularly to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The carrier also provided crucial airlift support in response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. In 2011, AeroLift was again pressed into service to deliver hardware and supplies to Japan following the devastating Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami.
Fleet Augmentations: More An-124s, New BC-17s
In 2010 AeroLift Cargo bought its two final Antonov An-124-100Ms, which were named Yulia and Mila. During the 2010 Farnborough Air Show, Mr Agee also purchased a set of four Boeing BC-17s - the first civilian versions of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military airlift jets. These planes began arriving in 2012, and were individually named for each of Mr Agee’s four young granddaughters: Charlotte, Nora, Megan, and Kayleigh.
Richard Agee Dies; Son Brandon Agee Takes Over
Richard Agee was tragically killed during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, when his pickup truck was swept into a bayou while attempting to cross a bridge near Houston-IAH airport. Mr Agee’s eldest son, Brandon Agee, age 33 at the time, took control of the company as the new owner, alongside his mother, Barbara Fossett Agee.
Brandon Agee had already worked as a pilot for AeroLift since 2004, first flying the company’s L-100s and An-124s before taking on 747s starting in 2012. The younger Mr Agee had begun learning the ropes of running the company itself only in 2016, but he managed to adapt to the CEO role quickly enough.
Ilyushin Il-76 Retired; An-124s Overhauled
By 2017, the company’s sole Ilyushin Il-76TD had become too problematical to support in terms of maintenance and upkeep, so Brandon Agee retired the aircraft. The Il-76TD was specially rigged to make its final flight to the Roswell-ROW airport in New Mexico, where it was scrapped.
Meanwhile AeroLift Cargo renewed its maintenance and general sales agent agreements with Antonov Design Bureau for the Antonov An-124. As part of that new agreement, each of the An-124s underwent a scheduled Heavy Maintenance Visit (HMV), also known as a D Check, at Antonov’s Hostomel-GML facility in Kyiv, Ukraine, requiring several months of downtime for each aircraft in turn.
The final AeroLift An-124 departed from Hostomel-GML in mid February 2022, just days before the airport was attacked during the early hours of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
Lockheed Martin LM-100J Rollout
Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin reached out to AeroLift in mid 2017 regarding their newest civilian freighter, the Lockheed Martin LM-100J - the latest version of the company’s increasingly venerable Lockheed L-100s. As a pilot who regularly flew some of the old L-100s, Brandon Agee quickly appreciated the LM-100J’s new generation glass cockpit, its night vision compatible headsup display (HUD), and other 21st century improvements to the aircraft. Mr Agee ordered six of the new LM-100Js to replace each of the carrier’s older L-100s. Although the aircraft were not originally scheduled to deliver until 2020, the original launch customer was unable to take its deliveries, so AeroLift took over as the new launch customer and received the first of its LM-100Js in 2018.
Recent Events
During the early 2020s, AeroLift Cargo were an active participant in providing air support in response to the Covid 19 pandemic. In addition to providing wet lease support to several package delivery companies, AeroLift also provided Covid 19 repatriation flights to the US and other countries throughout the Americas, ferrying foreign nationals back to their respective home countries throughout 2020. The company also delivered medical equipment and supplies worldwide, shipping everything from KN95 masks and vaccines to medical freezer systems and more.
Barbara Fossett Agee passed away in late 2020 due to complications associated with Covid 19. Her “silent partner” shares in the company were split between Brandon Agee’s younger brother Joshua Agee and younger sister Nicole Agee, while Brandon has since continued to run the company.
Destinations
While AeroLift Cargo Airlines is primarily an ad hoc charter carrier, the airline has also operates daily scheduled all-cargo flights since 2005 using the company’s Boeing 747-400ERF aircraft, flying round trip on the following routes. [ Map Link ]
Houston-IAH «» Los Angeles «» LAX «» Honolulu-HNL «» Brisbane-BNE
Houston-IAH «» Los Angeles-LAX «» Guam-GUM «» Singapore-SIN
Houston-IAH «» Shannon-SNN «» Sharjah-SHJ
Los Angeles-LAX «» Shannon-SNN «» Sharjah-SHJ
Los Angeles-LAX «» Houston-IAH «» Miami-MIA
Miami-MIA «» Shannon-SNN
Fleet
Current Fleet
The current fleet of AeroLift Cargo Airlines consists of the following aircraft.
† = JStream original aircraft
Antonov An-124 Ruslan - 1998-Present †
Boeing 747-400ERF - 2003-Present
Boeing BC-17 - 2012-Present
Lockheed Martin LM-100J Hercules - 2018-Present †
Former Fleet
The following aircraft were formerly part of the AeroLift Cargo Airlines fleet.
† = JStream original aircraft
Boeing 747-200F - 1994-2010; Retired
Ilyushin Il-76TD - 1998-2017; Retired †
Lockheed L-100-30 - 1994-2020; Retired †
=Nota Bene=
AeroLift Cargo Airlines is an original airline design, very slightly inspired by the now-defunct real life British carrier Air Foyle HeavyLift. Another carrier, Australia-based HeavyLift Cargo Airlines, also exists, but its fleet was not impressive enough for me to emulate, so it was ignored for this article. I placed AeroLift in the US instead of the UK for no particular reason. I decided that Houston - being America’s oil capital and already home to a heavy air cargo terminal - was as good a place as any to locate it. (I also plan to do an article about a British cargo airline later on.)
The Antonov An-124, Ilyushin Il-76TD, and Lockheed Martin LM-100J (and the older Lockheed L-100-30) aircraft templates are all original templates that were drawn in-house from scratch by me. All of these types can be found in civilian service worldwide.
I have plans to draw up an in-house made aircraft template of theIlyushin Il-76in the near future.… Done it! I added the Ilyushin Il-76TD in late October 2024. Information about the Il-76 can be found here.The Boeing 747-400ERF and Boeing BC-17 aircraft templates were licensed from Norebbo while the livery designs were created and adapted by me. Norebbo is awesome.
The Boeing BC-17 (actually named the BC-17X) was a planned civilian variant of the military C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlift aircraft that Lockheed proposed in the 1990s. It never reached production due to lack of interest from civilian carriers, but I decided to give it new life here with AeroLift Cargo Airlines. The BC-17 may show up again in some future article. Tomorrow never knows...
I love the Antonov An-124, and its bigger sister, the recently destroyed Antonov An-225 Mriya.
The Antonov Design Bureau exists in real life, although it is now known by the name Antonov Company. It is a subsidiary of Ukroboronprom State Concern, a Ukrainian government owned enterprise. I kept the original name only because it sounded more interesting. IRL most of the world’s non-Russian owned An-124s are still held by Antonov’s cargo airline subsidiary, Antonov Airlines, which now uses Leipzig/Halle-LEJ airport as its base due to the ongoing war with Russia.
In real life Tydol was a gasoline brand of the Tidewater Petroleum Company, a 19th-20th century oil company that was ultimately acquired by what is now ConocoPhillips, back in 1966. I was originally going to name the company Tyrell Petroleum, a reference to a ginormous company mentioned in the 1982 movie Blade Runner (one of my favorite movies). In the end, Tydol sounded like a better name to use so I renamed it accordingly.
All liveries depicted in this article were conceived and drawn by the Author.
The Antonov An-124 Ruslan, Lockheed Martin LM-100J Hercules, Lockheed L-100-30, and Ilyushin Il-76TD aircraft templates are all original, in-house created content created by the Author.
All other aircraft templates shown in this article were purchased from Norebbo under license and augmented by the Author for display. Blank side view templates of these aircraft are available for purchase through ShopNorebbo.
Route Maps were created using Great Circle Map.