Buoyed by a strong year, AirBridgeCargo Airlines is looking to add to its fleet as management intends to extend the all-cargo carrier’s reach to more markets.

The Russian cargo airline was preparing to take delivery of a B747-400ERF in February, and Denis Ilin, its executive president, indicated recently that he expects to receive another B747-8 freighter around September.

While other airlines pared down their freighter fleets and took older cargo aircraft out of service, AirBridge expanded its fleet in 2014. It took delivery of its sixth B747-8 Freighter last October, which brought its fleet to 13 widebody all-cargo planes, six 747-8Fs, four 747-400ERFs and three 747-400Fs. Earlier in the year it had received a 747-400ERF.

The route network expanded last year with the addition of new points in North America and Europe. AirBridge launched flights to Dallas/Ft Worth, Leipzig, Munich, Basel and Malmo. At the same time it beefed up frequencies on existing routes to Chicago, Milan, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul. At this point the airline operates 218 scheduled flights a week to 11 countries. It boasts a delivery time of 48 hours or less on most of its origin-destination pairs via the Moscow hub.

In late January, AirBridge made its first addition to its network in 2015 with the launch of twice-weekly flights from Moscow to Helsinki, returning via its western European hub in Frankfurt. The service fills a gap left by the decision by Finnair in December to suspend its freighter flights between Helsinki and Hong Kong. AirBridge was quick to point out that the new flight meant 48-hour transits from Asia to the Finnish capital and other Nordic countries.

Ilin has signalled that the network will expand further in 2015. In the main the new routes will be to points to “support smaller, niche or even short-term project business opportunities,” he said.

“The geographic location of our hub in Moscow positions us perfectly to introduce services to literally any point in Europe and beyond. The global market will remain challenging in 2015, but I look forward with confidence that we will keep pace with the demand and opportunities that exist for us,” Ilin said.

The carrier easily outgrew the market last year, as its tonnage climbed 17.6% to 401,000 tonnes. According to IATA statistics, global air cargo growth in 2014 was 4.5%. AirBridge reported an average load factor of 72.6% for the year.

At Frankfurt, its main western European hub, AirBridge clocked up 6% growth in the first 11 months of 2014 to 114,000 tonnes, which made it the leading carrier at the airport for another year, ahead of Lufthansa Cargo.

According to Ilin, the airline has been able to grow consistently with a compound growth rate of 11% over the last five years.

Management has attributed the results to improvements at its main hub in Moscow and reacting quickly to market changes. In addition, the airline has benefited from the “cargo supermarket” strategy of parent Volga-Dnepr Group, which has tried to leverage synergies between its charter arm based on Antonov 124 and Ilyushin 76 freighters and AirBridge.

One successful link-up of the two occurred in the run-up to the Sochi Winter Olympics, when Volga-Dnepr moved over 1,800 tons of cargo to the city, carrying broadcast, lighting and sports equipment. This combined AN-124 with B747 freighter operations, said Tatyana Arslanova, vice president of strategic management of Volga-Dnepr.

“We saw some positive impact from the cargo supermarket concept. The number of charters on 747s and 737s is increasing,” she said.

It remains to be seen in how far synergies from the ‘cargo supermarket’ will play into a partnership forged in early February by Volga-Dnepr with Advanced International Networks (AIN). Their agreement  calls for Volga-Dnepr supporting all three of AIN’s logistics networks: AerOceaNetwork (AON) for commercial cargo, XLProjects Network (XLP) for project cargo and All-in-One Logistics Network (AiO) for perishables, exhibitions and removals as well as project and commercial cargo.

By Ian Putzger

Air Freight Correspondent | Toronto