AirBridgeCargo to restart with Il-96s

Russian cargo airline AirBridgeCargo is set to resume its operations, utilizing two Il-96-400Ts. Pictures of the first aircraft, RA-96103 (97693201003), have surfaced on Telegram and were taken shortly after painting the aircraft in the airline's livery at Voronezh. The Ilyushin will undergo flight testing soon and is expected to be delivered later this year.

The aircraft is a vintage 2009 aircraft and was operated by Polet Flight between December 2009 and February 2012. Since then, it had been stored at Voronezh and was destined to go the the Russian Air Force but this seems now to have changed.

AirBridgeCargo, which is part of the Volga-Dnepr Group, was founded in 2003 and launched flights on 1 April 2004. Due to the imposed sanctions on Russia as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, the airline was forced to suspend all operations in March 2022. Although the airline said it would return its aircraft back to their lessors, the fleet has been stored at Moscow-Sheremetyevo. In total, the fleet of stored aircraft consists of three Boeing B747-400ERFs, twelve B747-8Fs and one B777F.

Photo via Telegram.