KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KL, Amsterdam Schiphol) is not in talks with Russia's AirBridge Cargo concerning the sale of its Martinair (Netherlands) (MP, Amsterdam Schiphol) freight unit the Dutch carrier's President and Chief Executive Officer Pieter Elbers has said.

Last week, the Vice President of Marketing and Sales at AirBridgeCargo (RU, Ulyanovsk Vostochny), Robert van de Weg, told Dutch paper Nieuwsblad Transport that while his firm had pursued an acquisition eighteen months ago, the Air France-KLM board had terminated the talks.

“Our interest in Martinair is still there,” he said. “If the possibility arose, we would be interested to pick up the contact with KLM.”

The Russian freight specialist reportedly planned to maintain the Dutch carrier as an independent airline operating out of its Amsterdam Schiphol hub.

However, during a Q&A session with the press last week, Elbers dismissed the report outright.

"We are implementing our plan to reduce the number of freighters and to save as much as we can for bellies (of passenger planes)," he was quoted by Reuters. "We are not having any discussions with other parties."

Martinair's fleet of eight aircraft - four B747-400(F)s and four MD-11(F)s - will be whittled down to just five aircraft by the end of next year with the trijets set to be phased out by June. The move will see 330 employees, including 170 ground staff FTEs in the Netherlands, 50 FTEs abroad and 110 cockpit FTEs, being made redundant.

But, despite posting a EUR141 million (USD155 million) loss for the first half of this year, down 44% on last year's figures, Air France-KLM expects the cuts to help Martinair to reach operating breakeven in 2017.