Record performance for Russia’s ABC

AIRBRIDGECARGO (ABC) Airlines, Russia’s largest scheduled cargo airline and part of Volga-Dnepr Group, started its 10th anniversary year with a record performance in the first six months of 2014, transporting 188,354 tonnes across its international network, 16 per cent more than the previous year.
The improvement reflects the airline’s strong market positioning on routes linking major cargo destinations in Asia, Europe and North America as well as the success of ABC’s own business development activities, says a statement.
Freight-tonne-kilometres in the January-June 2014 period rose by 19 per cent, exceeding the industry average of 4.4 per cent.
ABC also continued to outperform the market in terms of its average load factors in the first half of 2014, reporting a network-wide average of 72 per cent. This compares to an industry average of 45 per cent.
During the first six months of 2014, ABC continued to extend its international network and strengthen its position in existing markets.
In the United States, it added a second new route to Dallas/Fort Worth and also increased frequencies to Chicago. In Europe, ABC launched flights to Leipzig, Munich and Malmo and opened a direct service from Frankfurt to Chicago.
The carrier’s commitment to ongoing improvement of its service levels delivered further benefits in the first half of the year with its unique ‘Delivered-As-Promised’ index staying above 80 per cent.
Denis Ilin, executive president, notes that the challenges which the global air cargo market continue to face have not held back ABC’s development.
“We have achieved our goals for the first half of the year and lay down ambitious plans for the second half of 2014, which will include launching more new routes and increasing our frequencies on a number of existing routes, as well as growing our fleet.
“We will surely keep focus on our home market, not only by developing additional import business to Russia but also by launching domestic routes using the B737 freighter fleet of Atran Airlines, another part of Volga-Dnepr Group,” he adds.
“We are on track for a good 2014 and projecting our total tonnage for the year to exceed 400,000 tonnes.”