This is supposedly the most unusual decoration of any forwarding agent’s entrance: a tail fin of a Boeing 737 weighing 1,500 kilograms and 8m in height. The colossus is standing at QCS’s main office at Moerfelden near Frankfurt. “This large aircraft component is an ideal advertising medium for our company,” Managing Director Stephan Haltmayer of Quick Cargo Service proudly states, who saved the piece from ending up in a scrap press.
Indeed, an original tail fin adorning the front of a forwarding agent’s headquarters may well be unique worldwide. The part stems from a Boeing 737-700 built in Seattle in 1991. The D-AGEM
registered jetliner was a very special aircraft, having crossed the North Atlantic nonstop in 9:27h during its maiden flight taking from Seattle to Berlin Tegel. Never before had a B737 travelled
8,117 kilometers without landing in between for refueling up to March 11, 1998.
Berlin’s nay-sayers
The passenger aircraft was delivered to Boeing client Germania Fluggesellschaft mbH as first plane out of a total order of 12 B737-700s.
When the fin had to be replaced after a major inspection, Germania intended to display the giant part in front of their hangar at the still to be completed new Berlin Airport BER. For repainting
the decorative piece, they had engaged Quick Cargo Service to transport it with a special vehicle to Dublin, Ireland and back to Berlin. However, after the repainted fin returned to owner
Germania the local authorities expressed major safety concerns because of frequent turbulent winds that might blow the large and heavy aircraft piece over, eventually endangering people walking
by.
The bad news for Germania proved to be good news for QCS that was asked by the airline to find an adequate solution to dispose of the tail or recycle the material.
QCS saved the fin from ending up in a scrap press
However, instead of getting rid of it, QCS decided to keep it themselves and exhibit it in front of their building. And in contrast to Berlin’s safety watchdogs the local authorities at the
Gross-Gerau region near Frankfurt, which QCS’s hometown Moerfelden is part of, had no objection, requiring only that “recognized technical rules and, in particular, the structural stability
should be observed.”
After having built a solid foundation to accommodate the fin, it was brought from Berlin to Moerfelden and hoisted by a crane from the loader onto its pedestal and tightened there with dozens of
screws and bolts.
Today, everyone entering Quick Cargo Service’s headquarters can see by himself, where the tail fin of the fastest ever B737-700 has found a dignified last resting place.
By the way, Germania’s D-AGEM is still in service today, but with a replaced tail fin.
Heiner Siegmund
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