Volga-Dnepr Group has opened an Operations Base at Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport to serve customers across North and South America.

The base is an expansion of the group’s sales office, which opened in 2001, and will ensure customers will benefit from immediate local expertise and services to meet their logistics requirements.

Volga-Dnepr Group executive president – charter cargo operations, Konstantin Vekshin says the group will dedicate one Antonov AN-124-100 as well as crew, technical support teams and loading equipment to the Houston facility.

He says: “The Base will be staffed by load planning engineers and loadmasters, operations, navigation and ground handling specialists, and provide unique and specialised on-site engineering and delivery solutions to enable the safe and secure transportation of heavy and outsize cargoes.”

Houston Aviation director, Mario Diaz says the operations base will create 30 to 40 jobs in the local area.

He says: “Houston Airports remains committed to developing and improving intermodal connectivity, and new service offerings such as Volga-Dnepr’s operations base help us achieve our mission by further connecting the people, business, cultures, and economies of the world to Houston.”