Volga-Dnepr Airlines

Volga-Dnepr Airlines, LLC (Russian: ООО «Авиакомпания «Волга-Днепр») is an airline based in Ulyanovsk, Russia. It operates scheduled and charter passenger and cargo services, but specialises in outsize cargo operations using the world's largest fleet of Antonov An-124 aircraft. It is a world leader in the global market for the movement of oversize, unique and heavy air cargo.^[1] Its main base is Ulyanovsk Vostochny Airport (ULY), Ulyanovsk and it has a hub at Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo Airport (KJA), Krasnoyarsk.

History

The airline was established in August 1990 as a joint stock company by its 3 major shareholders: Aviastar, Antonov Design Bureau and Motor Sich. It started operations in October 1991, when it carried a 120-ton cargo from Amsterdam to Almaty.^[1] It entered a marketing agreement with UK-based HeavyLift offering the Antonov An-124 on the world cargo market, but this has now ceased. It became the first carrier in Russia, which was not part of Aeroflot, to start operations in outsize cargo. In April 2000 the privately owned Russian defence industry investor Kaskol acquired a 48% stake later bringing it up to 50% in the airline. At the end of 2005, KASKOL sold its stake in the airline, due to its discontent with the company's management's strategy.

Volga-Dnepr is in a group of 11 companies. In 2004 a new cargo subsidiary called AirBridge Cargo was established to provide scheduled cargo services.

Maintenance services in Shannon (Ireland) and Sharjah (UAE) operate as independent companies under the Volga-Dnepr group.

Antonov Airlines terminated its joint venture with Air Foyle Heavylift on 30 June 2006 to allow it to pursue a joint marketing venture with its erstwhile competitor Volga-Dnepr under the name Ruslan International,^[2][3] in which it has a 50% stake.

According to Moscow Defense Brief, the company has over the past 18 years transported gigantic excavators and yachts, missile launchers, airplanes and helicopters, elephants and whales, entire mini-factories and power plants, the latest release of Beaujolais Nouveau wine, and unique museum collections. Deliveries of equipment for the heavy machine building, oil and gas and aerospace sectors are most in demand.^[1] In 2008, Volga-Dnepr delivered Japanese International Space Station components from Japan to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.^[4] The company is also known to deliver military cargo for the US Armed Forces.^[5]

Services

Heavy lift operations

Scheduled Cargo operations

AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) is in charge of scheduled freight operations within Volga-Dnepr Group. Set up in 2004, the company was the first Russian cargo airline to operate Boeing 747 freighters. The current ABC fleet includes 11 Boeing 747 (two B747-200F, one B747-300F, five B747-400ERF, three B-747400F). The airline intends to extend its fleet by purchasing new generation long-range Boeing 747-8Fs. Among its key clients are leading worldwide freight forwarders such as Panalpina, DHL, CITS, Nippon Express, CEVA, UTi, Schenker, Dachser, UCS, and Hellmann.

Passenger operations

Volga-Dnepr operated a small and little known passenger service connecting Moscow with the various destinations, which at March 2006 were all Domestic destinations along the Volga river, with service offered using the airline's small fleet of Yakovlev Yak-40, 40 seat aircraft: Nizhniy Novgorod, Penza and Ulyanovsk. It is not present nowadays.^[6]

Fleet

The Volga-Dnepr Airlines fleet includes the following aircraft (at August 2006):^[7]

The airline's first upgraded Ilyushin Il-76TD-90VD, fitted with Stage IV compliant PS90 engines, was delivered in June 2006 and has been heavily used on cargo charter flights to Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan, from where the freighter had previously been banned due to stringent changes in environmental and noise legislation. A second upgraded aircraft was delivered in late 2007, and it expects to convert and operate at least 17 IL-76 aircraft by 2011.^[9]

References

External links

• Volga-Dnepr Airlines