Wildberries and AirBridgeCargo Airlines launch regular air charter services to the Russian Far East

The largest marketplace in Russia, Wildberries, starts using air charter services for delivery of its orders. The company has chosen AirBridgeCargo Airlines, part of Volga-Dnepr Group, as its prime partner. The new delivery model will enable e-commerce development in the Far East and speed up the delivery process to consumers from remote regions.   

The first joint charter flight organized by AirBridgeCargo Airlines and online retailer Wildberries was accomplished at the beginning of December. More than 1,700 parcels weighing 33,500 kg were delivered from Moscow to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk aboard Boeing 747-8F.

“E-commerce unites various regions of our vast country, however, its expansion in remote regions faces challenges associated with high logistics costs and lack of respective infrastructure. Wildberries’ geography is expanding at a sky-rocket pace, with the Far East being one of the major and emerging regions for our further development. Together with our partners, we are set to enhance regional e-commerce infrastructure, open new partners’ pick-up points, and speed up delivery to hard-to-reach places” – highlighted spokesperson of Wildberries.

Alexey Zotov, Commercial director of ABC, comments: “Air transportation has always been and still is the key to successful e-commerce development, which is equally important for global and domestic coverage given a vast territory of our country and geographical remoteness of our regions. For us Wildberries is a strategically important partner, our cooperation will strengthen the positions of both companies in the e-commerce market and, most importantly, will enable us to keep the delivery deadlines which are crucial today. Later on, we are aimed to introduce regular air services to other regions of Russia and beyond”.

Together with air charter services, Wildberries ramps up logistics infrastructure at the Far East. As of the second half of the year, the company introduced a program to set up pick-up points in partnership with other companies. For small and medium enterprises Wildberries offers special subsidies which equal increased remuneration of total branded pick-up point turnover.

Over 10 years AirBridgeCargo has been developing its dedicated services for customers, offering them logistics solutions based on a unique freighter fleet, international experience and IT technologies. For the first 10 months of 2021 ABC’s e-commerce volumes have gone over 70% up vs the same period of 2020, and overall e-commerce share reached over 30%.

Amid buoyant e-commerce development in Russia which is expected to reach 54,3 bln USD by the end of 2021, АВС aims to support the leading marketplaces in Russia with high-quality services to deliver parcels and shipments to final consumers.