American Airlines Cargo Delivers Prized Shipment for Renowned St. Petersburg Ballet

FORT WORTH, Texas, July 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Airlines Cargo (AA Cargo) secured the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre as one of the first customers for its newly launched cargo service from Moscow, Russia. With the unique transportation needs of the internationally renowned production company, AA Cargo was retained to deliver the consignment from the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre to Sao Paolo, Brazil, for the troupe's debut performance of "Sleeping Beauty."

In less than 72 hours, AA Cargo facilitated the shipment, which departed from Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport via American's nonstop Boeing 777 service to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD). The Ballet's cargo was transported through the airline's key U.S. gateways including New York and Miami to reach its final destination in Sao Paolo, in time for the premiere performance at the Teatro Nacional.

"Our work with the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre is symbolic of the service we offer the marketplace, and the new channels opened up for freight forwarders through the Moscow-Chicago lane," said David Kerr, managing director-AA Cargo Europe. "We are honored that AA Cargo was selected by the Ballet troupe to handle their irreplaceable shipments needed for the 'show to go on'."

"AA Cargo helped us navigate the logistical shipping challenges we faced," said Alexander Bondarev, Technical Director of the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre. "The airline worked with us to find a freight solution that met our needs for reliable, on-time service. Importantly, AA Cargo provided us with peace-of-mind and allowed us to concentrate on what mattered most -- the upcoming performance."

AA Cargo is offering its nonstop Chicago-Moscow scheduled service six days a week. Eastbound flights fly every day except Sunday, and westbound flights operate daily with the exception of Mondays.

"American Airlines provided excellent service to us," said Sergey Kondratsky, General Manager of the Concert Forwarding Agency, Tanaris." We have no doubts that, for future performances, this new service will be a natural choice. We ship consignments for numerous Russian theatres and orchestras on a regular basis and our schedule is planned for five years ahead. We are sure that next time we have a performance on the South and North American continents we will address American Airlines."

For more information, visit http://www.AACargo.com.

About St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre

The St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre was founded in 1994 by Russian entrepreneur Konstantin Tachkin, for the purpose of delivering classical Russian ballet to audiences worldwide. They tour extensively, including return visits to Great Britain and South Africa. This company is made up mostly of graduates from the famous Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg. They travel with their own orchestra under the baton of conductor Alexander Kantorov. Additional information is online at: http://www.spbt.ru/.

About American Airlines Cargo

American Airlines Cargo(SM), a division of American Airlines, Inc., provides over 100 million pounds of weekly cargo lift capacity to major cities in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. American, American Eagle and the AmericanConnection regional airlines serve more than 250 cities in over 40 countries with more than 4,000 daily flights. The combined network fleet numbers more than 1,000 aircraft. American provides one of the largest cargo networks in the world, with cargo terminals and interline connections available across the globe. For more information visit http://www.AACargo.com.

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