MSC acquires AlisCargo

On 3 August 2023, shipping giant MSC announced it has reached an agreement to fully acquire Italian cargo-airline AlisCargo. It's expected that the deal will be finalized early 2024. The take-over by MSC is mainly done to speed-up the process of obtaining its own Air Operator's Certificate, although AlisCargo's one has been suspended since January 2023.

MSC entered the dedicated air cargo market in November 2022 and is currently wet-leasing two B777Fs from Atlas Air. Two are set to join in the coming six months. It's unclear if these four aircraft will be transferred to AlisCargo' AOC at one stage.

AlisCargo was founded in 2021 and launched operations with two leased former Singapore Airlines B777-200s. Later, these were replaced by two former Alitalia B777-200ERs. All were operated in a makeshift cargo configuration. Since December 2022, however, both aircraft have been parked at Rome-Fiumicino and AlisCargo has been dormant ever since.

Photo by Adrian Kissane.