The Slovakian freight carrier Air Cargo Global (ACG) which was formed out of the old ACG which was based at Hahn Airport has shelved plans to start network operations with their two Boeing 747Fs. Instead, they plan to deepen the operational partnership with UK-based MAGMA Aviation.
Two freighter aircraft, two utilizers. That's the business model developed and obviously successfully practiced by Air Cargo Global and partnering MAGMA to their mutual benefit. This,
CargoForwarder Global was told by Vladimir Makarov, ACG's Director Sales Far East and Manager Special Prodict Development at the recent Shanghai-held trade show Air Cargo China. "For instance, we
operate our freighters on Thursdays for carrying our own loads, while our partner MAGMA takes the aircraft over on Fridays to accomplish their projects.”
Splitting costs
This mutual utilization practice substantially reduces costs, which are split between the two parties according to their share of utilization.
While at the beginning of the flights, ACG had their two freighters based in Frankfurt, the aircraft are meanwhile transferred to Brussels Zaventem International in Belgium.
"This we did as reaction to requests of our customers, that have a lot of Africa traffic they hire us constantly for," states Vladimir.
Two-way traffic
To further minimize the commercial risks, ACG also pacts with brokers, particularly Chapman-Freeborn. They sell the remaining capacity on the northbound routes for flying flowers or vegetables
from destinations like Nairobi to Brussels or Amsterdam. This way, both flights on a given Africa sector are filled with goods.
Line-haul flights are shelved until yields recover
As long as the yields on most of the global routes don't recover fundamentally, making network-driven traffic financially more attractive, Air Cargo Global's manager Makarov sees no reason why
his airline should give up its charter-based business model and commence offering the market risky line-haul services just because it had been announced in the carrier's initial phase.
"The entire industry hopes that the yields will improve in the near future, but currently it's hard to see any encouraging signs that this is going to happen soon.”
Until that day, all network ambitions ACG announced shortly after conducting it's first flights, remain shelved.
The fleet consists of one Boeing 747-400 pure freighter and a P2C converted B747-400SF.
Heiner Siegmund
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