ECONOMY
Silk Way West Airlines connects Europe and Asia
Baku, March 18, AZERTAC
MAB Kargo Sdn Bhd and Azerbaijan’s cargo carrier Silk Way West Airlines have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation that will see both airlines leveraging each other’s aircraft fleet and network in different regions of the world, according to Malaysia’s The New Straits online newspaper.
The strategic partnership between the two air cargo players entails a Block Space Agreement (BSA) on a twice weekly route to and from Kuala Lumpur and Amsterdam via Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Azerbaijan. The weekly flights are scheduled to occur every Thursday and Sunday.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Ahmad Luqman Mohd Azmi, Chief Executive Officer of MAB Kargo said “We have a solid network in Asia and Silk Way West will be able to expand its wings here as we continue to serve the Asian and Australian market with our fleet of Airbus A330-200F freighters. This partnership with Silk Way West will provide us with synergistic benefits by expanding our wings to new destinations such as Baku and Tehran and serve familiar markets such as Frankfurt, Malpensa, Vienna, Istanbul, and New York”.
Kamran Gasimov, Chief Executive Officer of Silk Way West Airlines said in his welcoming speech, “Leveraging existing interline and block-space agreements, this partnership will allow both airlines to have access to each other’s capacity across their respective global networks. The first Azerbaijan Freighter arriving in Kuala Lumpur airport today has started a new page in our airline history. We will continue our network expansion into South East region and meet the changing needs of the market”.
The inaugural Silk Way West flight, bearing flight number 7L434 touched down on Malaysian soil at 1630hrs today with an approximate total of 105 tons of cargo from Amsterdam. MAB Kargo has received bookings for over 95 tons of cargo for the returning flight from KLIA to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.