ASL Airlines Belgium inks capacity deal with Japan’s NCA

ASL Airlines Belgium (3V, Liège) has signed an agreement with Japan’s NCA – Nippon Cargo Airlines (KZ, Tokyo Narita) to operate two of the latter’s B747-400(FSCD)s. “By partnering with ASLB, NCA will be able to utilise part of their flight capacity and satisfy even more of our customer’s requirements. This important business expansion will enable us to provide customers with new, high-quality freighter capacity and further expand the global reach. NCA will explore additional service expansion with its European partner to other important markets including Africa and flights across the Atlantic connecting Europe and the US,” NCA President and Chief Executive Hitoshi Oshika said. According to the ch-aviation fleets ownership module, NCA owns five B747-400(FSCD)s. However, the carrier ended the in-house operations of these five quadjets in 2018 after a temporary grounding caused by the discovery of maintenance record issues. Following the resumption of operations, the Japanese cargo specialist resolved to focus on the B747-8(F)s, of which it operates eight (all dry-leased). Since early 2019, three B747-400(FSCD)s owned by NCA have been operated under CMI terms by Atlas Air (5Y, New York JFK). Flightradar24 ADS-B data indicates that N405KZ (msn 36132), N406KZ (msn 36133), and N508KZ (msn 36135) currently operate under Atlas Air’s code, while the other two freighters operate under NCA’s code. ASL Airlines Belgium, for its part, operates two B747-400(ERF)s and one -400(FSCD), alongside 28 other Boeing narrow- and widebody dedicated freighters. The airline is expecting the delivery of a further two B747-400(FSCD)s and has one B737-800 and one B757-200(C) under conversion, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows.