The Stansted, London-based all-cargo carrier will reshape its network, cancelling all scheduled flights from the UK to the African continent and seek fortunes elsewhere. Meanwhile, sister company AirBridgeCargo revealed plans to set up a huge cargo terminal at its home base Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport for accommodating pharma and temp critical shipments.
CargologicAir’s plans to achieve a leading position in the European air freight market will have to wait for some time to become reality. This presumption is underpinned by their decision to give
up flying to African destinations, thus transforming their network completely. CEO Sergey Lazarev of AirBridgeCargo Airlines, an affiliate of CargologicAirs, made the decision public, telling
local Russian media that the flights didn’t pay off commercially, because the African market proved to be too weak to justify the services to continue.
Where is CargologicAir flying from here?
The 2015 in the UK incepted and with British AOC equipped sister company of AirBridgeCargo operates two Jumbo freighters, Boeing 747-400F and B47-8F, both provided by ABC. According to plans
CargologicAir’s number of all-cargo aircraft shall go up to five. So far, the carrier operates line-haul services from its home base London Stansted, en route to Frankfurt onto Libreville, Gabon,
Johannesburg, South Africa and Nairobi, Kenya. Which alternative flight program they’ll come up with hasn’t been specified yet. Mr. Lazarev indicated the carrier might offer line-haul services to
America and China ex Stansted, without mentioning future destinations or the starting date for the operations. In what way these intended flight paths will complement AirBridgeCargo’s global
network remains to be seen.
Concurrently, ABC confirmed intentions to renew their fleet by phasing out their ageing Boeing 747-400 freighters until 2018 and replace them with B47-8Fs. Last summer, the carrier had ordered 20
B47-8Fs, with five of them being delivered already.
Huge pharma terminal project
ABC also announced plans for building a pharma hub at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport. Key part of the program is a 47,000 sqm automated cargo terminal that is expected to be operational before 2017
ends. The $85 million terminal will initially be capable of handling up to 380,000 tons a year with a future potential to expand to 1 million tons a year. Local Russian media quote Mikhail
Vasilenko, CEO of Sheremetyevo International Airport as saying: “We are set on building the largest cargo hub in Europe to meet the growing market needs.”
Heiner Siegmund
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