Silk Way West Airlines (7L, Baku Heydar Aliev International) took delivery of its first B747-8(F) last week the Cargo Facts publication has reported. The aircraft, VQ-BVB (msn 44444), was ferried directly from the Boeing (BOE, Washington National) facility at Everett to Baku Heydar Aliev International on August 22. A second freighter, msn 44973, is reportedly scheduled to follow sometime later this week though this is subject to official confirmation.

It is uncertain when the other two B747-8 freighters will be delivered as according to the original Memorandum of Understanding, the fourth aircraft is only scheduled for delivery in 2017.

At present, the Azerbaijani freight specialist operates three B747-400(F)s and two B767-300Fs on scheduled international flights with two Il-76s used primarily for charter operations.