Airline Name
Airfreight Express
IATA: 5Z / ICAO: AFX / Callsign: -
Country of Origin
Aircraft Types Used (from those available in WoA)
B742F (B747-200F) - (2 previously operated)
Underside of the B742F,
Taxiing/Parked at LHR
Parked at HKG in December 1999 & May 2000,
White livery variant,
Why should this airline be added?
Founded in 1998 by Philip Bowles, AirFreight Express was a British cargo operator that operated scheduled routes from its main operating hub of London Heathrow to international destinations in Europe, Asia & North America with a fleet mainly consisting of Boeing 747s, which were previous operators for multiple North American-based airlines like the Flying Tiger Line, Seaboard World Airlines & Federal Express, as well as the Flying Bank, Swissair.In Early 2001, AirFreight Express would face issues over their fleet of Boeing 747s as maintenance delays contributed to its initial grounding in 2001, which Bowles would file a lawsuit against Evergreen Air Center, a midsize maintenance and storage facility based in Marana, Ariz and a subsidiary of the privately held Evergreen International Aviation, with Evergreen International Airlines being part of the group. The lawsuit stated that Evergreen made multiple repair errors, failed to perform required work, charged for work never done and extorted money from AirFreight Express. Evergreen counterclaimed for fraud, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract. Upon Evergreen’s motion to dismiss, the trial court dismissed AFX’s claims without prejudice and Evergreen prevailed on its breach of contract counterclaim after a bench trial.
AirFreightExpress would cease operations on March 8, 2002, as it was officially grounded by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in following irregularities discovered in its flight operations and engineering. Attempts were made to restructure and restart the airline in 2004, but unfortunately did not materialise. The company formally entered insolvency administration in 2002/2003 and was officially dissolved in the UK in June 2020.