MASkargo, the air cargo subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), took the first delivery of the A330-200F on September 15th, 2011 at the Airbus assembly point in Toulouse, France. The remaining 3 airplanes are scheduled to be delivered in November 2011, January and April 2012. The celebration of the arrival of the first Airbus mid size freighter, which carried 61 tons of cargo into Jakarta, took place at the Soekarno Hatta International Airport (SHIA), Cengkareng and was witnessed by Mohd Yunus Idris (Senior Vice President Global Sales & Government Affairs MASkargo), Roslan Ismail (Country Manager MAS Indonesia), Evana (Managing Director PT Maskarindo Cargo - GSA MASkargo), A. Soebagyo (President Director PT. Gapura Angkasa), the management of PT Gapura Angkasa, Adi Kanrio (Chief of Airport Authority), Oza Olavia (Head of Soekarno Hatta Airport Custom), Wahyudono (representative from General Director of Air Transportation, Ministry of Transportation), the MASkargo customers and other invitations. The A330-200F is forecasted to increase the freighter capacity in 2012 by about 25 percent with schedule flights into Jakarta, Narita, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Sharjah and Penang. Jakarta was chosen as the first commercial flight utilizing the A330-200F out of Kuala Lumpur International Airport currently, a testament of MASkargo's commitment to continue to serve and grow in the Indonesia market. MASkargo is also proud to be first airline to operate the A330-200F into SHIA. During the ceremony, Mohd Yunus Idris said: "This is a historic day for MASkargo as the commencement of the A330 freighters operations denotes a critical milestone in how we have changed our business model. The introduction of this mid size fuel efficient airplanes allows us to grow our business in an efficient and cost effective manner. Furthermore, it is the first time MASkargo is purchasing the airplanes directly allowing these assets to be in the company's balance sheet". Yunus elaborates: "The four A330 freighters will complement the 2 B747-400F in the existing fleet. The combination of these two aircraft types will allow MASkargo to grow its network by better managing capacity to demand. The advantage of the A330 freighters allows us to develop new trade lanes between Asia, Europe and Australia which may not be viable using a bigger capacity aircraft. The acquiring of the A330 is an innovative game-changing strategy which we will first introduce our market in Jakarta. Our support and commitment in that region marks the significant contributions on the market advantage that Jakarta shares with us. Moreover, we also want to demonstrate the importance of Jakarta to us with our first cargo uplift beginning from there. "The airline industry experienced about 35 percent increase in fuel price over the last year necessitating MASkargo to cut capacity on our 747-200F leased freighter network due to the high cost of operation, mainly as a result of the high fuel burn rate. The A330 freighters provide us the opportunity to grow our capacity as we are able to serve more markets with greater frequency while significantly reducing our operating cost and maximising profit potential through growth even in the current challenging business environment." "With the phasing out of the leased 747-200F classic freighters, by the end of this year, MASkargo will have one of the youngest freighter fleet in the world and will be able to improve our on-time performance. The upgrade to more efficient aircraft is in line with the company's commitment to consistently serve our global customers better with improved service reliability, expanded capacity and wider network serving major trade routes. This strategy also supports our effort to be more environmentally responsible as our carbon footprint will be significantly reduced in 2012." The A330-200F is the world's most modern mid-size freighters and will be powered by the upgraded Pratt Whitney PW4170 engine with a maximum payload of 70 tonnes and range of 4,000 nm range. New freighter destinations scheduled for the A330-200F are Osaka, Japan (on 29th September), Taipei, Taiwan (in November), and other new routes included Kuala Lumpur to Europe via Shanghai and Karagandy, Kazakhstan (on 2nd October). MASkargo has shown that it has the foresight to make strategic investments as a global leader in the air cargo sector. Being on the forefront of achieving its business objectives, MASkargo collaborate and facilitate growth to its partners, station and customers.(eko)