Russian Post has sealed a major cooperation agreement with Aeroflot to speed up mail and expressshipment transportation and will also start selling airline tickets in its nationwide postal
offices. The memorandum of understanding was signed by Russian Post CEO Andrei Kazmin and AeroflotCEO Valery Okulov on Friday (June 20).The Russian postal operator announced that the cooperation is designed to increase the speedof mail handling at airports and to increase mail volumes transported via Aeroflot and its SkyTeamalliance partners. The mutual cooperation would help it to establish a leading position in expresstransportation of urgent shipments, it pointed out.
Kazmin said the agreement will enable the two companies to better respond to the needs ofprivate and business customers for high-quality postal and transport logistics solutions.
Under the agreement, the two companies will coordinate their activities to keep up with thedemand for air transportation of mail, especially in the north of Russia, Siberia and Far East, byexpanding the air network of domestic mail transportation and using appropriate types offreighters.
The memorandum also includes sales of Aeroflot tickets in post offices as well as jointadvertising and other projects through the mutual use of the companies’ networks and opening ofRussian Post service points at Sheremetyevo international airport.
Talking about the company’s plan to create its own air fleet, Kazmin confirmed that RussianPost was in negotiations with Russian aircraft manufacturing group OAK. But he stressed that noconcrete decision has been made yet and the issue is currently being reviewed.
Aeroflot chief Valery Okulov said that the signing of the memorandum deepened thelong-standing cooperation between the national airline and the national postal operator and was afirst step in their mutual work towards the organisation of logistics, mail transportation andexpress delivery.
Russian Post, with a network of 42,000 post offices and 415,000 employees, handles more than1.5 billion letters and 48 million parcels every year. Aeroflot, with a fleet of 88 aircraft, fliesto 96 destinations in 49 countries and covers 841 destinations in 162 countries through the SkyTeamairline alliance. Its air freight subsidiary Aeroflot Cargo plans to upgrade its fleet with 14modern Western-built cargo planes by 2010, and take its remaining DC10 freighters out of service.
