Silk Way Airlines

When an Ilyushin Il-76 with an Azerbaijani registration comes over your airport, Silk Way Airlines is almost always behind it. The charter cargo airline from Baku has flown what doesn’t fit into normal freighters since 2001: drilling equipment, vehicles, dangerous goods or relief supplies for places with hardly any infrastructure. At the same time it is constantly confused with its better-known sister Silk Way West. This page shows you what makes Silk Way Airlines tick, how to recognize the Il-76TD and how to keep the two Silk Way airlines cleanly apart.

Silk Way Airlines at a glance

Silk Way Airlines is an Azerbaijani cargo airline based at Heydar Aliyev Airport in Baku. The first commercial flights took place in October 2001. According to an airline statement for its 20th anniversary, the first international mission took an Il-76 with the registration 4K-AZ19 from Baku via Paris Le Bourget to Bagram in Afghanistan. The early crews were trained in Ukraine – a sign of how closely the airline was tied to Soviet transport technology from the start.

The business model has stayed the same since: charter cargo instead of scheduled service. Silk Way Airlines flies where there are no regular cargo connections and carries loads that are bulky, heavy or delicate. The airline itself cites equipment for the oil and gas industry, self-propelled machinery, dangerous goods and oversize parts. There are also contracts from governments and aid organizations.

For its 20th anniversary the airline stated that it had carried around 600,000 tonnes of cargo since its founding and had flown to destinations in over 130 countries. Such figures are self-reported – but they show well how widely scattered the missions of a small Il-76 fleet can be.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code ZP: appears in flight numbers and booking systems, but rarely matters to you for pure charter flights.
• ICAO code AZQ: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and therefore on flight trackers. This is the code you should watch.
• Callsign SILK LINE: this is how the crew calls itself on the radio.

The ICAO code is especially important at Silk Way because it separates the two sisters. Silk Way West flies under AZG with the callsign “SILK WEST.” If the tracker shows AZQ, it is Silk Way Airlines – and so almost certainly an Il-76.

Silk Way Airlines or Silk Way West?

The most common mix-up around Baku: the big Boeing freighters with “Silk Way” titles don’t belong to Silk Way Airlines but to its sister Silk Way West Airlines. Both are part of the private Silk Way Group, which according to its own information was split into three companies in 2019: Silk Way Airlines, Silk Way West and the maintenance company Silk Way Technics.

Feature	Silk Way Airlines	Silk Way West Airlines
IATA / ICAO	ZP / AZQ	7L / AZG
Callsign	SILK LINE	SILK WEST
Founded	2001	2012
Fleet	Ilyushin Il-76 (five aircraft, as of 2025)	Boeing 747-400F, 747-8F and 777F; A350F and 777-8F on order
Business	Charter, project and special cargo	Scheduled network to Europe, Asia and North America
Typical destinations	Regions without scheduled cargo, basic airfields	major cargo airports

For spotters the rule of thumb is simple: Il-76 equals Silk Way Airlines, Boeing equals Silk Way West. One small catch remains: the schedule on the Silk Way West website also lists Il-76 connections, for example to Basra, Baghdad, Kuwait and Atyrau. So the group apparently also uses the Ilyushin on regular services. In such cases, only the ICAO code on the tracker tells you who actually operates the flight.

Besides the two airlines there were other offshoots: SW Italia, based at Milan Malpensa, was closed in 2019, and Silk Way East, founded in 2016, never began flight operations and was dissolved in 2021. The group does not fly scheduled passenger service – in Azerbaijan, that is handled by the state-owned Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL).

The fleet: the Il-76TD as workhorse

According to the available information, Silk Way Airlines’ fleet (as of 2025) consists of five Ilyushin Il-76s. Industry service ch-aviation listed them in 2021 as the Il-76TD, the civil freighter version of the Soviet transporter. The airline itself stresses that the Il-76’s cargo hold suits bulky, valuable and dangerous goods and that the aircraft can also work at fields without loading equipment.

That is exactly what the Ilyushin Il-76 was built for: a high-mounted wing, a rugged landing gear for basic runways and a rear ramp that lets vehicles and large parts into the aircraft without lifting equipment. The TD version is designed for higher weights and more fuel than early production models and was long the standard freighter of many airlines from the former Soviet Union.

Type	Role	Status	Spotter note
Ilyushin Il-76TD	Charter freighter for special and project cargo	active, five aircraft (as of 2025)	Type code IL76, registration 4K-
Antonov An-12	Four-engine turboprop freighter	historic, used in the past	No longer in the fleet
Antonov An-178	Twin-jet transport	ordered in 2015, not in the fleet	Silk Way was announced as launch customer
Boeing 737 MAX	Narrowbody	agreed in 2017, not in the fleet	No delivery to Silk Way Airlines known

The Antonov An-12 is part of the airline’s history: Silk Way also flew cargo with it in the early years, including to Africa and Afghanistan. In 2015 Silk Way stepped forward as launch customer of the Antonov An-178, with an order for ten aircraft. None of them can be found in today’s fleet. The same goes for an order for ten Boeing 737 MAX agreed in 2017.

How to recognize a Silk Way Il-76

Because Silk Way Airlines flies only one type, the aircraft type is the strongest feature. The Il-76 is still easily confused, though – with other four-engine transports, but also with Il-76s of other operators.

Once the type is clear, the registration decides. Azerbaijani aircraft carry the prefix 4K-, followed at Silk Way by combinations of letters and digits as in the historic example 4K-AZ19. You shouldn’t rely on the paint scheme alone: cargo charter aircraft often change owners and looks over their lives, and an Il-76 without a distinctive livery is quickly misassigned.

Missions: charter, projects, crisis regions

Silk Way Airlines doesn’t earn its money with a fixed network but with contracts. How charter differs from scheduled service in principle is explained in the article Charter flights and scheduled flights. For a cargo charter airline like Silk Way, that means: an aircraft may carry drilling equipment to Central Asia today, relief supplies to the Middle East next week and a vehicle to Africa after that.

Afghanistan played a big role in the airline’s history. According to Silk Way, even the first international flight went to Bagram; in the following years the airline also flew contracts there in connection with NATO operations. In 2017 the Bulgarian newspaper Trud reported on alleged arms shipments with diplomatic exemptions. The Azerbaijani foreign ministry called the reports misleading; Silk Way stated in 2018 that the flights were legal, had been carried out on behalf of the US government, among others, and had met ICAO requirements.

Such missions come at a price. On July 6, 2011, an Il-76TD of the airline (4K-AZ55) on a flight from Baku crashed in mountainous terrain on approach to Bagram; all nine crew members died. With the An-12, Silk Way lost one aircraft in 2002 in N’Djamena, Chad, which ran off the end of the runway – all six crew members survived – and another in 2016 on takeoff in Afghanistan, in which seven of nine crew members died.

Spotting Silk Way Airlines

Silk Way Airlines has no fixed schedule to Germany, Austria or Switzerland. Its Il-76s show up in Central Europe irregularly, mostly at short notice and as part of a charter contract. The best bet is to look at airports with a lot of cargo traffic such as Leipzig/Halle. But here too: without a current tip, you may wait in vain.

There are several reasons why the Il-76 has become so rare in Central Europe. Russian aircraft and Belarusian airlines have been barred from EU airspace for years, so many former Il-76 operators drop out. On top of that comes the general trend away from older four-engine jets, described in the article The end of the four-engine jets. An Il-76 from Azerbaijan is therefore one of the few chances to see the type in this part of the world at all.

If an Il-76 is on approach, it pays to check the wind and runway direction so you are standing on the right side. The heavy aircraft produces strong wake turbulence, which you can see from the spacing to the following traffic – more on that in the article on wake turbulence separation. And remember: the Il-76 is loud, and you often hear it before you see it.

Common mix-ups

• Equating Silk Way Airlines with Silk Way West – the Boeing 747s and 777s from Baku belong to Silk Way West (AZG), not Silk Way Airlines (AZQ).
• Thinking Silk Way is the state airline – Azerbaijan’s national airline is AZAL, Silk Way belongs to a private group.
• Assuming every Il-76 is Silk Way – the type also flies for air forces and other cargo airlines. Registration 4K- and code AZQ decide.
• Confusing the Il-76 with the An-124 or C-17 – the glazed nose is the surest Il-76 feature.
• Mistaking orders for the fleet – the An-178 and Boeing 737 MAX were announced but don’t fly with Silk Way Airlines.
• Hoping for a schedule – Silk Way Airlines flies charter; sightings are chance or the result of a good alert.

If you are interested in more cargo airlines with Soviet and Ukrainian heavy transports, you will find the An-124 at Antonov Airlines and, at AirBridgeCargo, an example of how quickly the cargo market has changed since 2022. The modern side of the Silk Way Group, by contrast, is shown by Silk Way West’s Boeing 747-8F and Boeing 777F.

Conclusion

Silk Way Airlines is a small but exciting airline: five Il-76s, no scheduled flights in Central Europe and a history that stretches from Afghanistan to the oil and gas industry. The biggest hurdle for spotters is not recognizing the Il-76 but separating the airline from its sister Silk Way West. If you watch the ICAO code – AZQ for the Ilyushin airline, AZG for the Boeing freighters – you will classify every sighting from Baku correctly.