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Cargo B Airlines


Taken on October 14 2007 at Brussels: inaugural flight to Africa. (Picture: Skystef)

 

Base: Brussels
IATA: BB
ICAO: CBB
Fleet: 4x B747 (OO-CBA, OO-CBB, OO-CBC, OO-CBD)
History: formed on January 18 2007 by Robert Kuijpers (former CEO of SN Brussels Airlines and DHL), Arno Broes and Nicolaas Van Der Weide, this all cargo operator based at Brussels airport was carrying out flights in accordance with customer and market demands mainly to Africa and South America. On September 5 their first airframe, a former Air France B747-200, arrived at Brussels. On October 14, a scheduled service was started to Johannesburg, via Libreville and Nairobi. Their second Jumbo arrived on November 10, at first as back up aircraft. After its certification for commercial use, services to South America (São Paulo, via Dakar) were started on January 29 2008. By July (when one of their B747-200's was in heavy maintenance), services to Africa were suspended due to too low yields but after delivery of their second B747-400 on May 12 2009, these were restarted five days later. Previously, their first B747-400 was delivered on December 17 2008. Both factory fresh airframes were dry leased from Nippon Cargo Airlines (NCA) and replaced the more fuel consuming B747-200s. The cooperation with NCA resulted also in a financial injection and an interline agreement for cargo transport between South America and Japan, via the hub at Brussels. On October 27 2008 one of their Jumbo's (OO-CBA) was damaged after a tail strike on take-off at Brussels Airport and would never re-enter service. On May 12, 2009, announcement was made that the carrier would move her entire operations to Liège from July 1 2009 onwards, this as result of the airports lower handling costs and 24 hours service without any noise restrictions. On July 1 2009, it was announced that due to financial troubles all operations were ceased and five days later the company was completely liquidated, thus ending the short story of this Belgian all cargo carrier. 

 

Belgian Airlines