Robson Ships to the South Atlantic

Robson has just completed one of the smallest Baggage Reclaim Carousels they have ever manufactured. At just a12 metre perimeter the carousel could easily fit in your own living room.

The Robson Baggage Carousels are installed in major airports and seaports worldwide, but normally on a grander scale, such a small carousel would be dwarfed in airports such as Heathrow or Gatwick. So why would Robson build such a small carousel?

The carousel will be serving the arriving travellers to the tiny island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. Saint Helena is only ten and a half miles long and six and a half miles wide, with a population of 4200, which is about half of the population of Darnall.

St Helena lies 703 miles from Ascension Island, which was the staging post during the 1982 Falklands Conflict, a massive 4700 miles from the UK.

Robson design and manufacture Airport and Seaport baggage handling equipment, exporting worldwide. Robson’s sales in the airport industry topped £5m in 2011, for blue chip airport customers such as Heathrow, Manchester and Gatwick.

Robson’s Airport Systems Design Engineer Ian Blanchard stated, “the St Helena Carousel is half brushed stainless steel and half galvanised steel, it will sit half inside the terminal and half outside for the baggage handlers to load with the passenger luggage. The carousel will be packed and despatched for its four-week journey within the first weeks of November.

Even with such a small system the Robson high standards of build quality, high performance and robust reliability were applied. 

The carousel will be transported to Cape Town South Africa by cargo ship and then onward to St Helena by RMS St Helena one of only two surviving ocean going vessels to carry the title Royal Mail Ship.