The charter market has mirrored the air cargo market as a whole by proving strong in 2017, and Volga-Dnepr Group says a new regional base in the region has supported growth.
It has opened a regional base in Hanoi to provide full service support to local customers in Asia, which it says means Volga-Dnepr full team based in the region to help customers as well as special on-site loading systems for unique, outsize and heavyweight cargo.
Customers have been grateful for this, with Volga-Dnepr saying: “Our customers in Asia have welcomed this commitment by Volga-Dnepr and it is certainly generating more charter opportunities for our An-124-100 and IL-76TD-90VD freighters as well as for the 747 freighters in the Group’s fleet.”
Volga-Dnepr has carried over 20 different types of cargo for customers in the region, with the highest volumes coming from the industrial and aerospace equipment sectors.
The company says: “This is where Volga-Dnepr has a strong advantage given the uniqueness of our fleet and our ability to offer a range of logistics and engineering solutions for both regular charter shipments and very complex, out-of-gauge cargoes.”
Volga-Dnepr has also continued to put its Cargo Supermarket service, which combines scheduled and charter flights, to good use.
This was used to move a gas turbine from Chicago to a power station in Yangon in Myanmar, combining a scheduled Boeing 747 service operated by AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) along with a chartered IL-76TD-90VD.
The airline says: “The ABC cargo team in Chicago conducted a detail planning process to prepare for loading the outsize cargo into the freighter. In Hanoi, the urgent shipment was quickly transferred from the 747 to Volga-Dnepr’s IL-76TD-90VD ramp loading freighter, marking the first time such a transfer operation had been undertaken at the airport.”
With customers working in a wide range of industries including aerospace, oil & gas, energy and power, heavy machinery and automotive sectors, Volga-Dnepr is confident it will continue to grow, especially as the region is home to a concentration of fast growing economies.
It says: “Our customers can see we have a unique service offering, and we are also seeing more new customers showing interest in using air charters to and from Asia to support their global operations.”
