SOUTHAMPTON FREIGHT SERVICES LTD

Hitting the right note – Piano packing with a difference

At Southampton Freight Services we like to think we can handle the difficult, or should we say ‘challenging’ shipments.

Our personal care and attention to such movements is borne of a desire to challenge ourselves on a daily basis. There are times, however, when a certain request proves to be more of a test of character !

In July 2011 we were requested by Prestige Cruises, our joint Cruise & Marine Logistic Network client, to pack a piano and airfreight it to Vancouver. Whilst this sounds like a fairly simple exercise, the challenge was that the AvantGrand hybrid piano was on-board the Oceana Regatta cruise vessel, arriving into Dover at 0700 hrs and leaving at 1800 hrs the same day!

 

We arranged for our packer, accompanied by our Cruise Logistics Manager, Russell Cox to board the vessel at dawn and begin the packing process. Our careful and meticulous planning ensured we already had measured each individual section of the of the instrument, and had part prepared a case for the items.

The piano itself was behind the entertainment stage area and had to be moved through the ship to the loading area where we could then undertake the dismantling, wrapping and packing – whilst the passengers were still on-board the vessel! Our team, assisted by two crew members worked tirelessly to ensure the process went to plan. Indeed they were finished in record time and the packed piano was unloaded from the cruise ship at 1300 hrs and returned safely to our warehouse by 1700hrs where it underwent final checking, weighing and labelling before being loaded onto our night truck destined for London Heathrow Airport.

 

Less than a week later the piano was loaded onto the cruise ship in Vancouver by our partners Aerostream Logistics, leaving our client extremely happy with the seamless professionalism of our Global Cruise Network.