The lease of the aircraft – the eighth B747-400F in ABC’s fleet - commences today (December 15th). ABC says the extra capacity will support its existing route network which links its Moscow hub with Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Maastricht, Milan, Zaragoza, Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, Yekaterinburg, Almaty, Zhengzhou and Atyrau.

Tatyana Arslanova, Executive President of AirBridgeCargo, the scheduled cargo airline of Volga-Dnepr Group, said: “2010 has seen strong growth in our business and this will be our most successful year to date in terms of volume and revenues. Our prime focus with this additional B747 freighter is to ensure that while our business is growing we continue to place the strongest attention to providing the high service levels and schedule integrity that our freight forwarding customers around the world expect. We are committed to continually looking for ways to improve our performance levels because we recognize this is directly linked to the levels of business we are awarded.”

ABC took delivery of its 10th Boeing 747F in July. In addition to its fleet of B747-400s, the airline also operates two B747-200F and one B747-300F.