Cargo B Airlines Remembered

Airlines Remembered

Cargo B Airlines

Photos © R.Leeuw

Ceased operations: 01Jul2009
Homebase: Zaventum IAP (Brussels), Belgium
Founded: 2007
ICAO callsign: Cargo-Bee
IATA / ICAO prefix: BB/ CBB
Operations: Cargo

The JP Airline Fleet 2008 showes the following aircraft

When Cargo B Airlines was founded in 2007, it intended to operate from Brussels routes to the Middle East, Far East, Africa & S.America, with 2 (leased) 747s. A third Boeing 747-200F was also going to be leased thru 3P Air Freighters, but this never took place.
Investors included PMV, QAT and Petercam Services.
Cargo B started operations on 14Oct07.
Routes included Brussels to Sao Paulo (Viracopos), returning via Quito (Ecuador) and Bogotá (Colombia), as well as to Johannesburg (South Africa-JNB), returning via Nairobi (Kenya-NBO).
The Board of Directors of Cargo B Airlines consisted of the founders of the airline: Robert Kuijpers as President and CEO. Niek van der Weide was EVP Commercial and Arno Broes the EVP Operations. Gerard ter Bruggen became Director Cargo and Dirk Vrebos Director Operations. I personally remember Niek and Gerard while working for Martinair, a competitor on Cargo B's routes.

On 27Oct08 OO-CBA suffered a tailstrike at Brussels.

In Dec.2008 it became known that Cargo B Airlines was to take delivery of two new B747-400F freighters, formerly owned/operated by NCA - Nippon Cargo Airlines (KZ/Tokyo Narita). NCA was also planning to take a stake in Cargo B.

Reregistered N385NY when photographed at Amsterdam IAP on 25Jul09, awaiting the ferry flight out.

In 2009 Cargo B was to move its cargo operations from Brussels IAP to Liege,Belgium, in July. Cargo B also had entered into a cooperation agreement with Astral Aviation to offer connections from Nairobi to neighboring countries.
Unfortunately, on 01Jul09 the company had ran out of money and ceased all operations, victim of unfortunate events and shrinking markets as result of the global economic crisis which started in 2008. Both aircraft were ferried to Amsterdam.

N385NY (c/n 36785) was OO-CBD for Cargo B; it still wears the name "Aquarius" and full titles.

Stored at Amsterdam, 25Jul09.
N384NC was ferried to Victorville,CA for storage on 28Jul09, N385NY followed on 31Jul09.

Sources:
Aerotransport Data Base (ATDB)
Luchtvaartnieuws.nl (Dutch)

Back to Airlines Remembered
Back to Gateway to Jetliners

Created 01.aug.2009