SHORT SHOTS

Lufthansa Cargo gives an MD-11F an Italian name
A Lufthansa Cargo MD-11 freighter has been christened under the name of “Buongiorno Italy” (Good Day Italy) at a special ceremony held recently at Milan Malpensa Airport.
The aircraft with the official registration D-ALCM was duly met and watered by the airport fire brigade along with a musical serenade.
The ceremony was headed by LH Cargo’s Director Italy, Malta, UK and Ireland, Thomas Egenolf where he stated that “the name chosen for the aircraft, “Buongiorno Italy” symbolises Italy’s importance as one of the key markets in Europe’s air cargo industry. The greeting underlines the close link between Lufthansa Cargo and Italy.
Lufthansa operates over 250 weekly passenger flights along with two dedicated freighter flights between Milan and Frankfurt which first started operating in 2014.

Is Cargolux looking at a hub in the USA?
Rumours in the market certainly suggest that the Luxembourg-based all cargo carrier may well be looking at setting up a hub in North America to cater for the future operations of its new offshoot, Cargolux China.
The CV China operations are initially planned to concentrate on the transpacific routes and setting up an international hub in the U.S. would make sense.
The story is that Cargolux China with its base which is to be in Zhengzhou, has approached the Chinese Civil Aviation authorities for permission to operate to various destinations. Among them are Chicago, Dallas, Mexico City and Guadalajara.
The application to the CAAC also includes routes from Zhengzhou to Singapore, Australia, Tokyo, Seoul, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Volga-Dnepr and Sberbank enter strategic cooperation
An agreement, which covers finance and financial advisory services for Volga-Dnepr has been signed by the Volga-Dnepr Group and the Russian Sberbank at the St. Petersburg International Forum.
The agreement allows the VD-Group to tap into the resources and expertise of Sberbank in order to finance future investment for the carrier as well as to help develop the aircraft leasing project which Volga-Dnepr is putting together with its Irish subsidiary.
Both Volga-Dnepr and Sberbank have cooperated closely together in the past on issues concerning aircraft acquisition and financing.

IAG Cargo ups its Shanghai capacity
A new Madrid to Shanghai passenger aircraft service has been introduced by IAG Cargo, which will offer direct cargo connections from the Spanish capital to Shanghai.
IAG cargo also announced that 10 flights per week will be offered from London Heathrow to Shanghai with the start of the carrier’s winter flight plan. This is a capacity increase of around 30 percent on the sector compared to last year’s winter schedule.
The service out of London will use Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
David Shepherd, Head of Commercial at IAG Cargo comments: “our new direct route from Madrid to Shanghai will provide our customers with better connections between East Asia and Latin America and to our wider network which spans over 350 destinations.”

Cargolux goes “Lean & Green”, adds Ashgabat to its network
The Dutch Ministry for Environment and Infrastructure has given Cargolux Airlines its “Lean & Green Award“ for the carrier’s engagement in aiming for better CO2  efficiency within its total operations structure.
Cargolux is aiming to reduce emissions by 10 percent within the coming five years.
The outgoing CV CEO Dirk Reich commented on receiving the award that “as the first carrier to be honored with the Lean & Green Award is proof of our commitment to bettering CO2 efficiency all round.”
Meanwhile, the all-cargo airlines commenced flying to Ashgabat in Turkmenistan once a week. The service complements Cargolux’s existing flights to Turkmenbashi that were started a year ago. Since then, CV has expanded its Turkmenistan services to eight per week. This month, the carrier will further boost its frequencies to 11 per week.

AirBridgeCargo expected to firm up 747-8 orders
This year’s Farnborough Airshow is expected to be the place where AirBridgeCargo will firm up its option for a further ten Boeing 747-8 freighters.
This has been reported by Bloomberg, who state that the ten aircraft order is a follow-up on the commitment made a year ago by ABC’s mother company Volga-Dnepr Airlines to order up to twenty new B747-8Fs in the future.
The Moscow-based all freight carrier already has eight B747-8Fs in its fleet along with a further nine B747-400Fs.

American expands cargo services out of Ireland
American Airlines has a busy schedule in and out of Ireland this summer giving freight forwarders in Ireland direct access to four U.S. gateways and connections throughout and beyond the USA and Latin America.
American operates this summer directly from Dublin to Chicago (ORD), Charlotte (CLT), Philadelphia (PHL) and New York (JFK). An additional Shannon (SNN) to Philadelphia service is also on offer.
With the exception of DUB to JFK and SNN to PHL, which are operated with Boeing 757 aircraft, all services are with the Airbus A330-200, which is capable of uplifting 15 tons per flight.

John Mc Donagh