It was supposedly the final nail in the coffin of nefarious freighter operators. But heck no, it’s time to raise Lazarus from the dead. The once apparently deceased and buried Air Cargo Germany is about to re-incarnate.
There are a few minor changes along the way, which hardened industry observers will hardly notice. The name has changed to Air Cargo Global and the carrier has switched to a Slovakian register.
Operations are set to start-up with one 20-year old B747-400SF passenger conversion, expected to feature a familiar-looking red tailfin. The aircraft has been leased from Iceland’s Avion Aircraft Trading, with a second, this time production line B747-400F, understood to be due for delivery in September.
But like its former shadow, the new ACG lite plans to initiate service from Frankfurt-Hahn in Germany, to Shanghai and Hong Kong by way of Dubai. The soft launch of the airline will initially take the form of charters, before migrating to scheduled service. Some reports suggest the new carrier will also operate flights from the larger Frankfurt Rhine-Main airport.
Its new Slovakian domain though, means it will be required to pit stop in Bratislava, Slovakia, with some services. The airline confirms that it secured its air operator’s certificate from the Slovakian civil aviation authority earlier this year.
The majority owner of the new outfit is Igor Bondarenko, a Russian-born entrepreneur, now a Slovakian national. He, along with other Russian financial backers, is joined by former Aeroflot Cargo founder and CEO Andrey Goryashko, who will hold a minority stake in the airline.
Goryashko acted as strategic development consultant for Air Cargo Germany and is expected to reprise a similar role for Air Cargo Global. What can possibly go wrong?
Similarly, sales at the new ACG will be headed up by Alexander Kirichenko, another Aeroflot Cargo refugee and part of the former ACG management team. Lest it be forgotten, Aeroflot Cargo crumbled into oblivion, stretched by over ambitious plans to develop a central European hub at, of all places, Frankfurt-Hahn.
But the rebirth of ACG as, well, ACG, has already taken a curious twist. It is now reported that the new airline has signed a contract with the Belarus state-owned cargo carrier TransAVIAexport Airlines. The contract, it is said, will require ACG to operate two B747-400Fs on behalf of its new partner.
But it is not clear how TransAVIAexport will blend such capacity into its existing operation. The loss-making, Minsk, Belarus-based company operates a fleet of what it describes as more than 10 IL-76 freighters, mostly carrying out commercial charters and humanitarian flights to Africa.
It ran a feasibility study last year, based on research by U.S. consultants Airborne Global Solutions, which suggested a move to Western capacity, in particular B676 freighter conversions
Air Cargo Germany, it will be recalled, declared itself insolvent some 18 months ago, unable to put up sufficient cash flow projections required by German aviation authorities.
The airline’s future, ironically, had seemed assured after Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Group acquired a 49 percent stake a year previously. All kinds of synergies were immediately envisioned with VD’s line-haul operation AirBridgeCargo. There was also talk of the ACG fleet of then four B747-400s being replaced, in part at least, by newer ABC B747-8F capacity.
If Air Cargo Global is pressing to stretch the patience of the airfreight market in Europe, then it can at least take comfort from the fact the other newborn freighter operators are also out there trying their hand.
Take, for example, newly-launched Scandinavian carrier Viking International. Although registered in Finland and with Finnish and some U.S. financial backing, the airline is planning to start-up service out of Oslo in neighboring Norway. A single B747-400F is being acquired to operate a seemingly bizarre combination of service to Bangkok and Miami. But this and the originating point reflects the fact that the outbound base loads for the new airline will consist almost entirely of fresh salmon.
What is perhaps more bizarre is the fact that the fledgling airline is reportedly planning to augment its lone start-up B747-400F with the addition of two B747-400 combi aircraft leased from Air China. The Finnish backer of the project is a former executive of a Finnish leisure airline, so they may be planning on some multitasking.
If it is bizarre you are still after, then the latest business model offering from another European freighter provider may yet surpass what has gone before. Those familiar with AV Cargo, the Zimbabwean-registered all-cargo carrier, will be little surprised at the latest twist in the airline’s eventful history.
AV Cargo is itself another reincarnation, this time of Avient Ltd., the carrier’s previously failed UK-based sales operation which went into administration last year. AV Cargo re-emerged almost immediately with the same British management and re-started operation with two re-liveried MD-11Fs operating out of Liege, Belgium, to points in Africa.
More recently, AV Cargo has taken delivery of a third MD-11F, but according to Simon Clarke, the airline’s CEO, it will not join its stable mates within the current airline operation. Instead, yet another shell company, Global Associated Aviation Ltd., has been created to provide the front for the third arriving MD-11F to undertake standalone ACMI work.
Clarke explains that it is planned that the new company will develop ACMI work based on short-term, low-utilization contracts. The new entity, he says, will allow it to retain a neutral stance and distance from the carrier’s day-to-day commercial operations.
Some observers already question the validity of finding short-term ACMI contract work for an aircraft with such high operating costs in the present market.
The additional aircraft had been slated to join the airline as early as April this year, but is now expected to start flying as of September.