Russia's largest airline group is trying to circumvent Western sanctions by formally changing its ownership, the CFTS portal reports, citing the Kommersant publication.
In particular, according to Kommersant, the founder and main owner of the Volga-Dnepr group of companies, Aleksei Isaykin, who is under British sanctions, will no longer be one of the beneficial owners of all its Russian and foreign units and he is relinquishing control. According to sources on the Russian aviation market, this may allow the group’s Western companies to continue their operations.
According to Kommersant, Volga-Dnepr Logistics B.V., which is registered in the Netherlands, has owned 49% of Volga-Dnepr since 2020. The Volga-Dnepr Moscow management company (part of Volga-Dnepr Logistics B.V.) owns 51%. These two entities own the same proportions of shares in the carriers AirBridgeCargo and Atrant, which belong to the group. Until now, the Volga-Dnepr group’s flagship company was the Alpine Prosperity Foundation (Liechtenstein), which was 100% owned by Isaykin.
It was reported earlier that Volga-Dnepr was dismissing more than 200 pilots flying Boeing planes at its AirBridgeCargo and Atran airlines.
Volga-Dnepr is Russia's largest cargo airline group. It had a 51% share of the Russian air cargo transportation market at the beginning of this year.
In mid-March, it announced in a statement that it had suspended the operations of two of its subsidiaries that operated 18 Boeing-747 and 6 Boeing-737 aircraft.
Currently, the group continues to operate An-124 and Il-76 aircraft.
