AirBridgeCargo AirBridgeCargo

The first Russian cargo airline AirBridgeCargo appeared on the world air transportation market in May 2004. It was then that the first flight on the Boeing 747 airliner was made under the AirBridgeCargo brand. This event was preceded by two years of preparatory work, including the development of a development strategy for the project of regular freight transportation within the Volga-Dnepr Group of Companies, fleet staffing, selection and training of flight personnel, as well as the formation of a management team.

Today, AirBridgeCargo is the largest Russian regular cargo carrier and operates regular air traffic from Asia to Europe and the United States through Russia. Flights are carried out on cargo aircraft of the Boeing 747 family. It is noteworthy that AirBridgeCargo became the first Russian cargo airline to carry this type of aircraft. Currently, the AirBridgeCargo fleet consists of 11 Boeing 747 aircraft, in particular 5 Boeing 747-400ERF, three Boeing 747-400F and three new generation Boeing 747-8F long-haul cargo aircraft. The average age of the airline's fleet is just over 4 years.

Thanks to the modern equipment of aircraft, the airline is able to carry any type of cargo, including those that require special processing and temperature conditions. In addition, at the request of AirBridgeCargo customers, it develops individual solutions for cargo delivery, including organizing charter flights to almost anywhere in the world, both on its own Boeing 747 aircraft and on heavy cargo aircraft An-124 and Il-76 owned by Volga-Dnepr, also part of the Volga-Dnepr Group of Companies.

History

2023: Resuming Flights

The largest cargo airline in Russia, AirBridgeCargo (part of the Volga-Dnepr group), resumes flights after a year of downtime. This became known at the end of March 2023.

Over the past year, the company's team did not give up and sought options to resume operating activities together with Russian partners and manufacturers of aviation equipment. One of the possible solutions found was the restart of the entire company and the resumption of flights on the domestic Il-96-400T cargo aircraft, which will make it possible to adequately represent Russian aviation on the international market, - said the representative of Volga-Dnipro, whose words are quoted by Interfax.

Russia's largest cargo airline AirBridgeCargo resumes flights after a year of downtime

It is noted that the first flight should take place on the Moscow-Beijing route. The carrier, before the suspension of operations in 2022, was the largest operator of Boeing 747 cargo aircraft in Russia and maintained the stability of supply chains for its customers at a global level since 2004, "the statement said.

According to RBC, photos (see above) of the first Il-96-400T in the color of AirBridgeCargo appeared in Telegram channels, which are allegedly taken at the airfield of the Voronezh Joint-Stock Aircraft Building Company (VASO; enters the perimeter of the UAC). At the same time, in the pictures, the liner with registration number RA-96103 is not equipped with engines and a stabilizer. This car was previously operated by the Voronezh company Polet, which went bankrupt in 2016. The Volga-Dnepr group expects to receive another airliner from the fleet of this carrier - Il-96-400T (RA-96101), the interlocutors of the publication say.

According to RBC, Volga-Dnepr also began searching for specialists to work on the IL-96-400T in Moscow and Ulyanovsk. Vacancies were placed in mid-March 2023.^[1]

2022: Pilots cut due to sanctions amid conflict in Ukraine

In August 2022, it became known that the Volga-Dnepr group of Alexei Isaikin will reduce almost all the remaining pilots of the subsidiary cargo airlines AirBridgeCargo and Atran, which flew on Boeing airliners. That's over 200 people. The company came under sanctions amid the conflict in Ukraine.