OREANDA-NEWS. February 1, 2012. AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC), part of Volga-Dnepr Group, has today celebrated the delivery of its first of five new generation Boeing 747-8 freighters from Boeing (NYSE: BA).

Tatyana Arslanova, Executive President of AirBridgeCargo Airlines, said: “The introduction of the Boeing 747-8F does represent a huge commitment towards our customers since we are investing into state-of-the-art equipment to further expand our route network for our customers. We have a firm believe that our established and new customers will greatly benefit from the additional features the 8F will provide such as enhanced payload especially on denser routes. With the introduction of the Boeing 747-F and the withdrawal of the classic freighters we will entertain the youngest freighter fleet in the whole industry. It does mean that we do maintain the highest standards of environmental compliance a wide body full freighter fleet currently does offer.”

"ABC is a valued customer of Boeing that has built a very successful cargo business with a help of eleven 747 airplanes and we are confident it will maintain its impressive rate of growth, supported by the new fleet of Boeing 747-8 Freighters," said Marty Bentrott, Vice President of Sales for Russia, Central Asia and Middle East for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

The new 747-8 Freighter is 250 feet, 2 inches (76.3 m) long, which is 18 feet and 4 inches (5.6 m) longer than its predecessor, the 747-400 Freighter. The stretch provides customers with 16% more revenue cargo volume, which translates to four additional main-deck pallets and three additional lower-hold pallets. The 747-8 Freighters are powered with GE's GEnx-2B engines.

ABC sees the addition of the 747-8 to its fleet as another important step in its long-term business strategy. In addition to the five 747-8 Freighters it has on order, AirBridgeCargo has options for five more aicraft.