OREANDA-NEWS. April 29, 2010. Less than two weeks after taking delivery of its fifth Boeing 747-400, AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC), the scheduled cargo subsidiary of Volga-Dnepr Group and Russia’s largest international cargo carrier, has added a sixth B747-400ERF, increasing its total 747 fleet to nine aircraft.

The latest aircraft is being leased from Air France and joined the ABC fleet on April 13th. This investment is in support of Volga-Dnepr Group’s strategy of continued fleet and network expansion.

Tatyana Arslanova, ABC’s Executive President, said: “Enlargement of our fleet is one of the core parts of ABC’s strategy, which is targeted at development and enhancement of our service quality. Bringing in additional aircraft, especially the highly efficient, long-range Boeing 747-400ERF will improve our punctuality and allow us to increase the number of frequencies on all the routes in our network.

“By expanding our fleet with these two latest B747-400 freighters, we are also able to take one of our Boeing 747-200Fs out of our scheduled aircraft fleet and reserve it for charter operations. Having this additional capacity in reserve will also help to guarantee ABC’s schedule stability and consistency and produce a positive impact on the airline’s overall service quality.”