Listen: More 737-800 conversions and a new drone system

In this week’s episode of the “Cargo Facts Connect” podcast, Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee and Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke discuss regional freighters and Boeing’s expansion of conversion capacity in India, as well as several 737-800 developments, including the imminent arrival of a 737-800BCF to join the Central Airlines fleet . In addition to manned aircraft news in Asia and Europe, San Francisco-based Zipline has launched its P2 delivery system , including a new drone and charging station that functions with a detachable droid. Tune in for a discussion of these topics and more for the week ending March 17, 2023. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain. Andrew Crider Hello and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect the podcast of cargo facts, the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I'm your host Andrew Crider, associate editor of cargo facts. Robert Luke And I'm your co host, Robert Luke, associate editor at cargo facts. Jeff Lee And I'm Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts. Andrew Crider One day, we'll just we'll streamline this, I'll introduce you both as experts. But today I'm going to turn by introducing you Robert Luke as expert of Jetstream. Robert, you sat down with Jetstream. And you got some cool information tell me more? Robert Luke Well, I'll give you a little tidbit because we want their subscribers and listeners to tune into when we do our full article review and question and answer segment with Stuart klaskin. Who I do want to thank for making the time to do a follow up meeting with me as he could not actually sit down during the istat convention last week in San Diego because he was extremely busy with meetings to continue moving gesturing forward in the treble part regional leasing segment. That being said, I learned something interesting news, of course, I won't spill the juicy portion of the news that I received, because that would be kind of gossiping. But for now, we'll just say jet stream is moving forward in a positive manner. Their saab 340 fleet is moving strong and is in strong demand. So contrary to the economic outlook of the freighter market outlook jet stream is doing very well, they expect to move at least a minimum of 10 to 12. And perhaps even up to 80 more conversions for this freighter type. They're very confident that this freighter type has at least another 10 to 15 years worth of life left, which is a little bit of time, if you look at the age of these airframes, and they're still in high demand, which is you know, boating very well for the lease company. In addition to that, we can expect to see the Saab 2000 prototype, not only begin to start distributing out to to customers who I will not name, but we'll save it for our q&a article segment. But they're going to be dispersed out this year upon completion of certification with easa and the FAA. So I think that's all I'll shed on it as far as our jet stream information and knowledge right now. But kudos to the jetstream group. And we look forward to promoting some more good news coming down the pike for that company as 2023 progresses. I think from there, Andrew, I'll pass it back to you. So you can continue informing our viewers and listeners of the latest scoop. Andrew Crider to absolve myself of any type of fat responsibility. I'm going to ask Jeff about the 737 800. Jeff Lee Yeah, well, here's another week, right, where we had quite a bit of 737 ng activity and more specifically, eight hundreds, you know, since last Friday, when Boeing announced a rather interesting announcement, actually, they were setting up another 737 800 BC F conversion line, but this is going to be their first in India. Now we know India, there's a lot of potential for growth in terms of free to aircraft in India, and the kind of the starting this wave of expansion. And obviously, obviously, you know, it also is in line with companies generally kind of diversifying. And, you know, setting up factories and other production facilities in India, Southeast Asia, as as opposed to just China. And now, of course, the China is still the heavyweight when it comes to conversion facilities and conversion lines. But yeah, in any case, this new line is going to going to be in Hyderabad. We don't know the, the full details of the timeline and all that. But but it is interesting, and it is going to be yet another conversion location on the sort of conversion map. But that so that was last Friday, but this week. Yeah, we had quite a few 737 800 items. One of these interesting nuggets, I guess was CAMEX airlines, which launched last year with a single 737 800 BCF. Now, we know from earlier this month, that or last month that the first BCF converted in London at the Boeing Gatwick facility that is an Ice lease aircraft and that will be joining Camex as a new subsidiary in Slovenia. Camex Adria. But now they have also taken his 737 800 SF converted by AEI and the leasing that one from World star aviation. Interesting thing about this aircraft is that it was actually completed last year I believe, and actually, it was previously destined for Compass cargo in Bulgaria. Now obviously, that deal fell through and didn't happen and that the aircraft had just been sitting in Montpellier in France for a while. We I mean, we had even seen a painted in the compass colors, but obviously that they had to repaint it in camex livery and we've seen that as well. So now it's interesting and there aren't that many airlines in the world that have more than 1 737 800 conversion type. ASL ASL group is another one that also has BCF and SF. And DHL, obviously, the vast majority of their eight hundreds are BDSFs but they recently just bought two BCFs that were returned from SpiceJet in India and that will be going back to India. For blue dart. Moving on, yeah, Robert Luke Jeff, did you mention bluebird by chance? Jeff Lee Blue bird? Yes. Blue Bird also has BCFs and SFs. Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. So yeah, but there aren't many. And most people stick with one conversion type, for obvious reasons. But yeah, it's interesting nonetheless. And then, also interesting is central airlines in China. Pretty fast growing airline and they are also growing their 737 800 feet. And, you know, having just started in 2020, they will soon be at 10 aircraft, including 4 737 800 BCFs. And they Well, first of all, I think the livery very colorful livery is very interesting not not like most Chinese carriers. But the know they also hinted that they, this won't be the only 737 800 addition for them this year. And as they look to start replacing, or removing their older, three hundreds, so you know, the BCF is so far, at least the only 800 conversion type that is in operation in China among with Chinese carriers I wonder when we'll see that change. But yeah, but right now there's China postal airlines China Central longhao Shandong JD and Tianjin air cargo and central airlines so pretty large group of carriers that in that country, flying the type. And yeah, that's we will continue to see more of them heading into into China Andrew Crider prevent us from droning on more about aircraft. Let me drone on a little bit about drones that this week had, I think one of the largest drone stories ever and that would be coming from zipline, of course, pioneered commercial drone delivery with medical deliveries in Africa, they've accumulated more than 500,000 miles flown with their P one drone. The announcement this week, of course, being the unveiling of a P2 system. Now this is a system that zipline has designed from the bottom up to four integrators. It includes a charging station and deployable drone droid that will actually fly into a warehouse or a restaurant wherever it's picking up its cargo in then return to the drone itself onto a charging station when it's at that point in time. tribution and then fly on and using that droid for that last mile delivery. We're looking at a drone type with a slightly less capable range and speed but increased payload capacity. But the big story there is the amount of customers that there's already received. Now the zipline is already certified by the FAA to operate as commercial airline. So, by the end of the year, we will be having zipline and dronamics operating as cargo airlines entirely with drones. For the new P two models, zipline has already acquired Michigan medicine, the government of Rwanda. American restaurant chain sweet green. And I believe it's Intermountain Health the salt Lake City based hospital chain. Right really terrific news. gratulations to the folks and zip line there. Robert. Yeah, I just got got from you. This is. Zip line, of course, is a San Francisco based company. I believe you had some story about a Washington based company. Salt Chuck, Robert Luke we most certainly do. We had the pleasure of also sitting down with the CEO Betsy seaton at is that so we thank you first and foremost, Betsy for spending time with us there. And just kind of got a good brief outline of their goals for fleet strategy planning for 2023. So they do not intend at the moment, as of now to add any more 7378 Hundreds However, they do have feedstock in place to continue converting their 7673 Hundreds. And they will continue to disperse them based on customer need between the aloha air and the Northern Air Cargo AOCs. In addition to that, I think some interesting news that was coming out of their sectors, they're just in addition to wanting to be more customer focused recently, back in December acquired Alaskan based part 135 operator, Ryan air. And Jeff will probably tell me I should have mentioned that first because we got to do current first and then older news later. But I'll keep that in mind going forward. So yes, they made this acquisition with a specific mindset of keeping all of their regional operations on the port 135 certification, and all of their narrowbody wide body operations on the Aloha air and the Northern Air Cargo certificates. I thought that was some very insightful news there as they continue to evolve their market and specify their mode of service to cater to their customers directly, as they want to be more customer centric and focused on making sure that their product meets the needs of the operations that they serve in the various regions throughout the America. So we're looking forward to seeing how that continues to unfold and develop and looking forward to some more insightful news releases coming down the pipe from that organization. But I do want to reverse back real quick. Just give me 30 seconds. I'm asked this very simple question. Gentleman, Andrew and Jeff. Do you see India, not only as a bustling market, but the emerging market in the region? And who do you think is going to have the stronghold dominant freight or type in that airspace is going to be Boeing? Or is it going to be Airbus? Because we know Pradan just opened up with the a 320. And of course, right now, people are evaluating the performance capabilities of that aircraft. But what are your thoughts on it? Which one do you think will be the dominant for you to take? Jeff Lee Yeah, I mean, that's certainly an interesting question, right? Because, like you said, we have pradan air Express, but we also have Indigo with 2 A321 P2Fs. Now we know that they're expecting more than just the two and then with them being you know, such a huge Airbus operator, Airbus narrowbody operator, you know, we would that's not surprising, but then you also actually have very large 737 Ng and Max passenger fleet in India and those airlines will look more likely look to the 737 conversions, right and we already have SpiceJet now with the they returned those to BCFs. But they have three 700BDSFs. Not quite sure what happened there but yeah, and then you also have now the wood aren't we about to get there to 800 BCF but, yeah, I mean, I think, certainly under narrowbody sign, it's going to be pretty close. I think. The question is, if, if or when we move from the narrow body side to the wide body? What are we going to see there? Is they don't have a wide body free to operator. And, you know, Will we ever see a wide body free to operator? is I guess the larger question? Andrew Crider Well, I don't have the answer to these questions. I will say, if you wanted to get them answered, there's one place to go to that would be the Pan Pacific Singapore APR 17 through 19. Joining us for cargo facts, Asia, which will bring together all the industry experts and C suite executives across major airlines and players all over the world, but with a special focus on the Asia Pacific region, which I'm sure we can have certainly more lively conversation. There. Jeff, you mean to add something? Jeff Lee I didn't. I didn't mean to not mention. Quick jet. I just didn't get to them. Yeah. They Yeah, I mean, the latest 737 800 BCF operator in the country. Of course, being affiliated with the ASL group. Again, that's probably not surprising that they're doing well. They're using that 737 800 type. But yeah, I'm the reason started flying recently. And that's all what Amazon with their domestic operations in India, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more 737 800 BC F's making their way to enjoy the quick jet fleet. And we and there's also potentially another new operator that has been in the startup stage for a while and the the we're expecting to get there first. Again, the 737 800 I think at the end of last year, we are trying to look into that and to follow up on the latest with that startup, but more to come. Andrew Crider And on that, that's going to be time for us to end. For more multimedia coverage like this search cargo facts connect on iTunes and Spotify and search cargo facts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in and join us again next time. Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor . Cargo Facts Asia, the essential event for stakeholders in Asia, will take place in person April 17-19 in Singapore. Register today.

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