The company entered the scheduled cargo market in April 2004 when the first AirBridgeCargo branded Boeing 747 made its inaugural commercial flight on route from Beijing to Luxembourg. This milestone for Volga-Dnepr Group was the realization of two years of preliminary work to build the airline's fleet, network, management and personnel. During two years of follow-up ABC continued its development with expansion of network in Asia and Europe and enlargement of its Boeing 747 freighter fleet. In November 2006 AirBridgeCargo received its own air operator's certificate, thus becoming an independent scheduled cargo airline within Volga-Dnepr Group. The carrier was the first Russian company to deploy Boeing 747-400F and Boeing 747-8F into its fleet in 2007 and 2012 respectively and to start transpolar flights on the Hong Kong – Chicago route. The Company is IATA member, IOSA certified and obtains a number of certifications for operations of special cargoes delivery, among them being IATA CEIV, QEP certification. It is also a member of industry-related associations, such as CargoiQ, Cool Chain association and others. Throughout its development, ABC has achieved strong growth, reporting a compound average tonnage increase of 15% in the last five years.
Corporate affairs
ABC is present in Asia, Europe and North America, with the head office in Moscow - Building 3, 28B, Mezhdunarodnoe road, Business center “Skypoint”, Moscow, Russia 141411
Destinations
AirBridgeCargo operates a scheduled freighter route network of 37 destinations as of November 2019 focused on Europe, Asia and the United States.
Fleet
As of June 2020, the AirBridgeCargo fleet consists of the following aircraft:
Aircraft
In Service
Orders
Notes
Boeing 747-400F
2
—
Boeing 747-400ERF
4
—
Boeing 747-8F
13
—
Total
19
0
Incidents
On September 11, 2012, an Airbridge Cargo 747-8F experienced a major engine malfunction that spread a significant amount of metallic debris on the runway. Like in a similar event during pre-flight taxi tests, the low pressure turbine shaft separated and moved the low pressure turbine backwards braking on surrounding hardware.
On July 31, 2013, an Airbridge Cargo 747-8F experienced core engine icing that caused engine malfunctions and damage to three engines near Chengdu, China, while en route to Hong Kong; the aircraft landed safely at its destination. Boeing and General Electric are working on software changes to mitigate the effects of core engine icing.
