The arrival of the aircraft, acquired from Nippon Cargo Airlines, will also enable ABC to double its frequencies between Japan, Russia and Europe to four flights a week. The addition of Hong Kong to the network is possible by combining ABC’s two additional Nagoya flights with Hong Kong, where it enjoys full traffic rights.

Announcing the extra aircraft, Stan Wraight, Vice President of Volga-Dnepr Group, ABC’s parent company, also confirmed that two more 747-200Fs will be joining the airline’s fleet in 2007. At the end of 2007 and in early 2008, AirBridge will also take delivery of two new-build Boeing 747-400ERF freighters with a list price of $450 million.

 He said: “The fourth aircraft will allow us to offer even greater reliability, more balanced schedules and added frequencies and destinations. Our operations in Asia will increase further when two more 747-200s join our fleet in January and March 2007.”

The B747-200 aircraft joining ABC in July is a nose and side door loading freighter. This configuration makes the aircraft perfectly suited to the major commodities carried by ABC, such as oil and gas equipment and project cargoes in Russia as well as for general freight traffic. All the new aircraft are powered by GE engines, identical to the rest of ABC’s current fleet and the new aircraft in the pipeline.

With the introduction of the fourth aircraft, ABC will offer 10 flights a week ex Frankfurt and four per week ex Amsterdam to Russia, providing daily and twice daily services to Moscow (SVO and DME) and five flights a week to Krasnoyarsk. As well as its current two flights a week to and from Japan, ABC also operates seven services a week to and from Shanghai and four flights a week to and from Beijing in China.