Freight a mighty player
Airfreight forwarders are continuing to struggle to find space on aeroplanes for their customers’ cargo as the months go by. Ever more airlines have ascertained how lucrative main-deck opportunities currently are, so Boeing has increased its conversion capacities.
The ubiquitous phenomenon of passenger planes temporarily being converted into full-freighters has not only been taking place in the West. In Russia in May, for example, Nordwind and Pegas Fly, subsidiaries of the Pegas Touristik Group from Turkey, and S7 Airlines, both started using aeroplanes, parked on account of the lack of passengers, to transport freight.
In August the latter went one step further and announced that it is leasing two Boeing B737-800BCFs from Gecas. Once converted the units – then ‘real’ full-freighters – will in- crease the cargo capacity of S7 Airlines by 30% from next month onwards, and then from January 2021. Russia’s largest private airline transported 28,300 t of airfreight in the first half, 70% more than in the previous year. Calling this an important milestone doesn’t qualify as an exaggeration.
Small and large milestones
There are currently 134 orders for B737-800BCFs in Boeing’s orderbooks; 74 thereof have been placed by launch customer Gecas. In September Boeing reacted to the run on the scrap metal by announcing that it will establish a second production line for the short and medium-haul freighter (which can carry 23.9 t) at the Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Company at the beginning of next year. A second production line for the larger (56.6 t) B767-800BCF is set to commence operations at ST Engineering (Singapore) before this year is over.
