British cargo airline Cargologic Air received its Air Operator Certificate from the U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority and has taken to the skies with a charter flight to Italy this week. Cargologic Air – a subsidiary of AirBridgeCargo and part of Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Group – is operating with a 747-400F, which it leased from Aircastle in November 2015.
Denis Ilin, the CEO of AirBridgeCargo, previously stated that Cargologic Air would mainly serve on a charter basis, while regularly scheduled flights would be handled by ABC. However, according to The Loadstar, Cargologic Air has a scheduled route that will operate twice-weekly, operating on a Stansted-Frankfurt-Libreville-Johannesburg-Nairobi route. In the meantime, the new carrier has another charter scheduled, from Munich to Upington, South Africa, which is known for its grapes, raisins and wine. AirBridgeCargo does not have Africa in its network, so Cargologic Air could be a good partner for interlining to the continent.
Cargologic Air is majority owned by Cargo Logic Holding Ltd., whose sole shareholder is Alexey Isaikin, the president of the Volga-Dnepr Group. Isaikin is a Cypriot, therefore a citizen of the European Union, and so allowed to operate in the U.K. He is also the company director of Cargo Logic Management, whose sole shareholder is Volga-Dnepr Logistics BV, registered at Schiphol-Amsterdam.
The CEO of Cargologic and owner of one share is Dmitry Grishin, former CEO of Volga-Dnepr Airlines and previous vice president of sales for Ruslan. Chief commercial officer is Stephen Harvey, most recently of Atlas Air. Check out this video of a recent takeoff from Russian aviation news portal, ato.ru: