Sakhalin is one of the world’s most oil rich regions. An estimated 45 billion barrels of oil equivalent lie off its shores, equal to the remaining reserves in the US or Europe.

ABC launched a weekly service to Sakhalin from Frankfurt and Amsterdam in March last year. Its Boeing 747 freighter services connect with the dedicated IL-76 freighter operation at ABC’s hub in Krasnoyarsk. Now a second weekly flight has been added to satisfy demand from the oil and gas industry in the region, including growing demand from China and Japan services that also operate through Krasnoyarsk.

The airline has appointed Stanislav Gaponenko and Alexander Vorontsov as its representatives in Sakhalin, responsible for sales and customer service respectively.

Alexander Mazilin, Regional Director of ABC in Krasnoyarsk, said: “Our weekly service has been very successful over the last year and it has always been our intention to increase the frequency of services to keep pace with demand from our freight forwarding partners and oil and gas customers. We have demonstrated our commitment to Sakhalin and provided regular and reliable scheduled services. This has established ABC with its customers as a proven carrier of equipment and supplies to and from the island. We will continue to add capacity as it is required.”

Import cargo for Sakhalin originates in Europe, the USA and Asia. In addition to its own scheduled services linking Europe, Russia and Asia, ABC has signed major interline agreements with Air Canada, Continental Airlines, Nippon Cargo Airlines and Qantas to establish high quality freight channels into Sakhalin through their connections with ABC flights. Air Canada generates traffic from the oil industry in both Calgary and Edmonton and Continental Airlines is expected to follow suit ex Houston.