German furnace and engineering group Horn organised a rescue flight to bring its staff back from a glass packaging plant in Mexico.
Its employees had been at the Sivesa container glass facility in Orizaba, east of Mexico City since February to set up and commission a glass melting plant.
But after the local mayor in Orizaba declared a state of emergency after the number of corona cases increased rapidly, Horn reacted quickly to bring its staff home.
Most international airlines had discontinued flying to Mexico City so Horn brought back its employees on its own initiative.
It organised a charter flight which flew back to Germany last Sunday, March 29. Horn said it had taken on the six-figure cost incurred for this.
Stefan Meindl, Horn Glass CEO and MD, said: “The top priority and attention is given without reservation to the safety of our employees, both at the headquarters in Plössberg, on the customer's premises as well as on the construction site.”
The commissioning of the glass melting plant at Sivesa is now being carried out in cooperation with the customer via a central control point in a specially created centre.
It means an expert team for commissioning is permanently connected to the customer online. Horn controls and monitors every operation carried out by the customer's technical staff on site.
The plant produces up to 1.5 million packaging glass containers, such as beverage bottles or food containers, a day.
Horn added that it will support its customers on site as soon as the corona crisis is over.
