Nippon Cargo Airlines re-organises freighter network
25 / 10 / 2019
Nippon Cargo Airlines (NCA) has announced it will re-organise its service network, with changes rolled out over the coming months for its winter schedule.
The new flight schedule will utilise all eight of its Boeing 747-8 freighter aircraft, which were last year grounded due to maintenance record discrepancies along with three B747-400Fs, and was designed to “better meet customers’ requirements and enhance its services”.
All eight of the -8 freighters had re-entered service by the start of the summer schedule, but, as previously reported, the three B747-400Fs were handed over to Atlas Air to fly on its behalf following the grounding.
US schedule changes: From January 2020, in order to extend export acceptance times, flights from Tokyo Narita to Chicago scheduled to depart Japan between 2:00pm and 3:00pm will now depart between 10:00pm and 11:00pm. In addition, flights from Chicago to Tokyo Narita will now arrive in Japan between 7:00am and 8:00am to allow cargo to be recovered earlier at the destination.
Some Los Angeles flights that are operated by Atlas Air, and use B747-400Fs, will “partially” be replaced with larger B747-8F aircraft operated by NCA.
Asia schedule changes: From October 27, NCA will operate a new, weekly service from Shanghai Pudong to Chicago. The airline hopes to increase the frequency in the future.
Transatlantic and European schedule changes: NCA has suspended its ’round the world’ service (Narita – Anchorage – Chicago – Frankfurt Hahn – Milan – Narita). Some of these flights will be changed to Nartia – Anchorage – Chicago – Anchorage – Narita, returning the aircraft to Narita after Chicago rather than continuing to Europe.
NCA’s last scheduled flight from Chicago to Frankfurt–Hahn will be on December 24 and the last scheduled flight from Frankfurt–Hahn to Narita will be on December 25.
NCA will continue to operate four flights per week on its Narita – Amsterdam – Milan – Narita route. It will also continue to offer services between Tokyo Narita and Frankfurt via Amsterdam.
The airline plans to strengthen its services between Tokyo Narita and Milan through strategic capacity arrangements with partner airlines.
