Russia's AirBridgeCargo (RU, Ulyanovsk Vostochny) and its UK partner CargoLogicAir (P3, London Stansted) will cancel a total of eleven freighter connections as of November 1, the logistics newspapers DVZ and Air Cargo News have reported.
Six of the routes are operated by AirBridgeCargo, five by CargoLogicAir. Four will be axed from Moscow Sheremetyevo, including three operated by AirBridgeCargo to Dhaka via Shanghai Pudong; to Seoul Incheon via Tokyo Narita; and to Beijing Capital; and one by CargoLogicAir to Hong Kong International.
Four more will be axed from Frankfurt International, to Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson, Chicago via Atlanta, and Oslo Gardermoen, as well as routes from both Munich and Liège to Moscow Sheremetyevo.
Three further routes operated by AirBridgeCargo will be re-routed. A connection from Munich to Moscow Sheremetyevo will be replaced by Los Angeles International-Frankfurt-Moscow; Amsterdam Schiphol to Moscow via Munich will be replaced by Amsterdam-Moscow direct; and Leipzig/Halle to Moscow via Paris CDG will be replaced by Leipzig-Moscow direct.
Alexey Zotov, AirBridgeCargo's commercial director, explained in a letter to customers that the airline had “optimised its flight schedule in order to improve the quality of service”.
The move comes a week after AirBridgeCargo parent Volga-Dnepr Airlines (VI, Ulyanovsk Vostochny) told the newspaper Kommersant that it would ground one or two of its eight An-124 freighters while laying off up to 100 of the company's 1,500 employees, reflecting today's challenging airfreight market conditions.
