October 2 - Aircraft manufacturer Boeing's leasing unit, Boeing Capital Corporation, has completed the transition of two MD-11 Boeing converted freighters (BCF) on multi-year lease agreements to UK headquartered airline AV Cargo.
The freighters entered into service from AV Cargo's Liege, Belgium base primarily on routes into West Africa. The first MD-11 BCF was delivered in May 2013 with the second aircraft entering revenue generating service recently.
AV Cargo says that the new equipment will operate into key West African cities including: Lagos, Nigeria; Bamako, Mali; Entebbe, Uganda; Port Harcourt, Nigeria; Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo; Freetown, Sierra Leone; and Pemba Island.
The MD-11 BCF features and updated flight deck and cargo handling system, improved fuel efficiency and increased operating capabilities.
Neil Glover, AV Cargo's managing director and co-founder, said: "This second delivery is an important milestone in our strategic business plan that will allow us to further penetrate and optimise our planned scheduled services, providing us with the necessary redundancy to ensure our customers with frequent and reliable services.
"The MD-11 is the natural and logical choice to serve our niche market needs in the 65-95 tonne payload range, operating into some of the smaller and performance-challenging airports within Africa that preclude most other aircraft," Glover continued.
A third MD-11 is expected to enter service in early 2014 and according to AV Cargo ceo Simon Clark, "It will reinforce our scheduled services and significantly increase our ad-hoc charter capacity and complete phase 1 of our business plan."
