AirBridgeCargo’s stellar Q1 growth reflects improved market sentiment

Russia’s largest cargo airline AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) commenced its 10th anniversary year with the strongest first quarter in its history, with tonnage up nine per cent in Q1 to 86,500 tonnes.

Commenting on the airline’s performance, Denis Ilin, executive president of AirBridgeCargo Airlines, said, “Today is a proud milestone for our company and a tribute to all of the members of the ABC team around the world and our parent Volga-Dnepr Group for enabling us to achieve our strategic goals over the first 10 years of our development. Most of all we say thank you to our customers for their support and trust in us. We value long-term partnerships and look forward to achieving further growth together.”

ABC says its growth reflects market improvements in Russia, Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific as well as the success of its own sales activities. Freight tonne-kilometres in the first three months of 2014 rose by 13 percent, way above the industry average of 4 percent growth in the months of January and February. Load factor for Q1 was 71 percent again considerably higher than the industry average.

Continuing its network growth in the first three months of 2014, ABC added Dallas, Leipzig and Malmo as new on-line destinations and increased its frequencies to and from Chicago. The additional operations strengthen ABC’s position in the European and North American air cargo markets. By adding new destinations and improving connectivity with its Moscow hub, ABC is able to offer an increased choice of routes and connections for its international customers.

The airline’s continued focus on improving its performance levels led to further gains in Q1, increasing its ‘delivered-as-promised’ performance to 78 percent.

In 2013, AirBridgeCargo Airlines carried 340,000 tonnes and flew 2,609,000 FTKs, achieving an average load factor achieved of 72 percent, considerably above the industry average. ABC is recognised as the air cargo leader in the Russian market with a market share of over 30 percent on major routes into Russia. For several years, ABC has also earned a leadership position on other routes all over the world.

ABC has delivered on its commitment to constantly finding ways to improve the airline’s quality and performance results. ABC is an important part of Volga-Dnepr Group’s ‘cargo supermarket’ portfolio and plays a significant role in the global air cargo market. Despite or possibly even due to the harsh economic market conditions, ABC has achieved year-on-year growth and development thanks to the hard work of its highly-skilled international team as well as its flexibility, open minded customer relationships and its continued drive to serve its client.