Silk Way Airlines expands fleet with another Boeing 747-8F freighter

On Friday, April 7, an official ceremony of arrival of a new Boeing 747-8F aircraft, which belongs to the Azerbaijani cargo airline Silk Way Airlines, was held at Heydar Aliyev International Airport.

President of CJSC Azerbaijan Airlines Jahangir Asgarov, President of Silk Way Holding Zaur Akhundov, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the United States to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta, Economic Section Chief at the U.S. Embassy Carter Wilbur and others attended the event.

The aircraft arrived became already the tenth aircraft of the Boeing type for Silk Way Airlines and the fifth Boeing 747-8F, which will be operated by the airline.

Thus, the arrival of the aircraft marked the successful completion of the first phase of a large-scale cooperation program between Silk Way Airlines and Boeing Corporation.

The total cost of purchased aircrafts under the program amounted to about 1 billion US dollars, which is the largest project in the history of Azerbaijani private enterprises' development and activity.

It should also be noted that Silk Way Airlines actively develops and strengthens business relations with both US private companies and public sector since 2005.

Silk Way Airlines is one of the air carriers recognized and certified by the appropriate US authorities.

Close cooperation with US TRANSCOM (the United States Transportation Command) allowed the airline to carry out transportation orders on all important destinations, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

The delivery of the new aircraft will enable Silk Way Airlines to expand the geography of flights, increase the volume of the cargo transported, and cover new segments of the air transportation market. This will also allow the airline to reduce the operating costs of the aggregate fleet of aircrafts and, as a result, to increase the profitability as a whole.

With the expansion of the fleet of aircrafts, Silk Way Airlines plans to open new flights to Tokyo, Djibouti, Nairobi and Dhaka along with the existing direct regular cargo flights from Azerbaijani capital to the cities of New York, Chicago, Milan, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Dubai, Seoul, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Over the past 10 years, Heydar Aliyev International Airport has become a major air cargo logistic center. Today, Azerbaijan's civil aviation has announced itself as the official air carrier of the Great Silk Road project connecting East and West.

Purchasing of new wide-body long-haul Boeing 747-8F aircrafts, well-established in the freight market, is an important part of the implementation of this strategy.