Listen: News from AUVSI XPONENTIAL, plus more A321Fs

In this week’s episode of the “Cargo Facts Connect” podcast, Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee and Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke highlight the key takeaways from the Association for Uncrewed Vehicles International’s XPONENTIAL 2023 exhibition and conference in Denver this week and other developments. Cargo drones dominated the news this week, with Canada-based Volatus Aerospace evaluating whether it will order more Natilus drones . It also announced plans to expand its cargo drone operations into the Dominican Republic and the United Arab Emirates. In the conventional air freighter sector, Boeing received its first order of the year for its 777F last month from an unidentified customer; Canadian North flew its final 737-200C flight earlier this month; and Nexus Aviation acquired the first of two A321-200s the lessor will convert to freighters. Tune in for a discussion of these topics and more for the week ending May 12, 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 cargo facts connect the podcast of cargo facts, the newsletter of record for the freighter aircraft industry 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 I'm joining you live from Denver airport, gate B 19. Before my flight back to Richmond, Virginia, we just wrapped up a very exciting week at the AU VSI exponential conference. And I have a whole lot of drone news for you here. Jeff Lee What was? Yeah, you've done a lot of work, there. Thank you. But yeah, what's the the immediate takeaway from you, and the overall feeling of that event and the drone industry, Andrew Crider I, it was a very productive week for a lot of companies there. We know that we had already reported on a lot of news from volatus aerospace, this is the Canadian drone operator, they had previously signed agreements with aerial robotics, a German company, which they've now switched, and they're hoping to announce new partnerships in the coming weeks. Now, I spoke with them just before I left the conference. And they told me that they had had a very productive week, and we should expect a lot more news from them in the days ahead, which is very exciting. Now, I think in the drone industry in the drone space, it all comes down to the FAA in the United States. As far as regulatory pickup, there were several sessions there, where we heard from the FAA, and that's, that's a unique opportunity to hear back from the regulators. And they don't seem very encouraging. The FAA set multiple goals of having the airspace prepared for the integration of advanced Air Mobility by 2025, with future developments and in use in 2028. And they see we're on track to do that they said that their space would be ready. Jeff Lee Right? I mean, it seems like you have a whole host of companies just and various exceptions and waivers and all that. Just things would be much easier, with a standard kind of path for certification and a standard regime for all of these companies that are all just kind of, I guess, waiting and banking on the regulators to to implement that plan. Right? Andrew Crider i Yes, I think that there is going to be an advance in certification timeline. Now, the FAA has always issued new waivers to do that, however, because of industry feedback, they're making significant progress. And one of the cool things that we were able to touch on is programs like that the X Wing is doing programs like that reliable robotics is doing, where they partner with the Federal Aviation Administration and with NASA, to collect the data that's going to be valuable to the ultimate integration for these advanced air mobility solutions. And the FAA said that the feedback that they've gotten from these programs has been exceptional, and is definitely advancing the process. Robert Luke Andrew, can you touch a little bit more, or as a lot of our industry peers like to say, Could you put some color on how NASA's involvement is going to not only advance technical, technologically, the pace of solidifying regulatory our practice and compliance for the drones, but to actually enhance it and make it even safer than initially projected? Andrew Crider You know, I'm happy you brought up NASA. Because there, there was a representative from the state of Oklahoma. James blanking on the last name, and my apologies to James. But he represents Oklahoma and he said that NASA's involvement in Oklahoma has been pivotal, not just for the collection of data, not just for the ultimate airspace integration, but for exciting the workforce. It matters to see and a name like NASA come to your small town to invest in advanced Air Mobility and people take notice and it's spurring job creation. Robert Luke That's awesome. You know, I don't know much about the drone space as far as the NASA involvement goes, but you know, the little bit that I've read, I've seen some wonderful simulator creation that they're using to kind of get a feel for what it would be like to integrate drones into the regular airspace coming Financing practice along with turbine powered piston power, you know, regular fixed wing vehicle. So I'm excited to see how those developments unravel as we continue to progress forward. But, man, thank you for sharing that information. It's truly enlightening. Andrew Crider Thank you, Robert. I know it's what's going to be make or break in the next few years is the FAA development of John visual line of sight regulations. Yeah, that's what's going to make this these technologies viable in the cargo space. And, you know, I think there's a number of companies we heard from Jeff luckett at UPS's flight forward. And I think he's a visionary. I think there's a lot of exciting things on the horizon. There is and I think that as soon as we solve this BVLOS issue, which we are on the verge to, I mean, I heard some companies who are phone calls away from their authorization. We're going to see a paradigm shift at revolution and evolution in the last mile cargo delivery systems. But you brought up turbines, and that makes me ask you, How was your week? What news do you have to share with me? Robert Luke Well, I think we had some groundbreaking news this week with Nexus aviation, who just announced that they have acquired their first aircraft unit 2919 is ex Aruba airlines a 321, that they're going to be converting with 321 positions precisions excuse me, at their new conversion line that opened in January 2022 at the HAECO facility in Xiamen. So we're very excited. And congratulations to Nexus aviation, who already has their second aircraft that they pretty much are in the final stages of acquiring to move right after unit 2919. So we're looking forward to seeing some really good things happening with Nexus aviation, which happens to be backed by the parent company of 321, precision conversions, the family office known as Erickson so I think we're going to see quite a strong pipeline coming through that at least company and they're only specifically going to focus on the A321 freighter portfolio. That's all they're looking at at the moment. So I think there's some big things happening there. Earlier this week, Canadian North officially retired their 737 200 that aircraft has been was the fourth and last in their fleet. And they officially have taken it out of service after conducting its final flight, I believe was on May 6. So we tip our hats to them for keeping that legacy aircraft in the air for as long as they possibly could, which is exceeded records, I'm sure from a historical timeline perspective, but it's not going to be parked, it's actually going to continue operations in Latin America. And we tip our hat to them for continuing to keep the classic in motion. And we'll look forward to seeing it take to the skies and the southern climate regions. Jeff, what do you have going on on your head? Jeff Lee Well, we also had other A321 News didn't we because we had smartlynx, which is already the largest operator of that type. And they have, I mean, they have a mixed fleet of both EFW and precision, the 320 ones but they are just continuing to add more. And they they're they're on about to add two or three more in fact. And this, this is interesting because they're about to take two that from a new lessor to the A321. space. And that's J LPS Ireland. What's also interesting, I think, is that they are really, I imagine they're really starting to expand their ACMI customers. So of course, the first few they had, I still think with DHL or for DHL. And then recently they added Skycana as an ACMI customer. They've got one aircraft flying in the Caribbean, but a second one will join and funnily enough, the second one that is there is going to join Skycana is already painted in sky cana colors, but it's actually flying temporarily within Europe for DHL, which is kind of an interesting site. But Robert Luke free promotion for Sky cana. Jeff Lee Yeah, and yeah, yeah, in Europe. But we Yeah, I mean, we will we'll see whether they are which new ACMI customer they secure. But in the meantime, I guess they will of course make that aircraft available for kind of charters and ad hoc operations as well. And they're still I think, on the on their way to the goal of having as many as 20 A320 ones by the end of this year. But they, they, their partner carrier global crossing it they started there with their first a321 This year, earlier this year, and in fact, they're, they're very close to taking their second. So kind of a similar situation on the, on that side of the Atlantic for global crossing, they are the only operator of that type right now in the US, and they can will continue to be, I guess, for for a little while. And during that time, they will quickly expand the 321 feet. I think we've mentioned before they have their plan is for a total of six by the end of this year. Robert Luke You mentioned partner carrier, when you said global crossing for our subscribers that are listening that may not know what you mean by that. Can you give them a little more insight? Jeff Lee Yeah, I think I mean, to be fair, that partnership, I think is mostly on the passenger side of things. Not quite sure what that means for their freighters. But they all that means, I guess, for our purposes is the they do have some kind of relationship. But yeah, what that means on the passenger side is they will exchange aircraft, while one side of the market is in its peak season and the other isn't and and vice versa. So just trying to increase utilization of their passenger aircraft, particularly because they're both ACMI and charter specialists, right, and that's kind of highly cyclical. Robert Luke Thank you for that analysis. Appreciate it. Jeff Lee Yeah. So it's apart from all the drone news. I guess I wanted just to quickly mention the the triple seven. And you wrote that story about Boeing recording its first unidentified order. Robert Luke Yeah, right. Absolutely. Jeff Lee Now, we always have fun when it comes to unidentified orders. But what are your thoughts on that? Robert Luke Well, I'm curious to know who it is just like you are. And we've definitely been doing some digging below the earth's surface and above to try to find out who it is. But you know, Boeing is very good at keeping things fortified when it comes to trade secrets and strategic alliances and deals. So if I, I don't even know where to begin, if you're asking me to guess. I feel like I need a little bit more of a clue, or some fact finding through some more research before I can kind of start to narrow it down to who I think it would be. But I mean, with that being said, I will just have just kind of by default go with what you're probably going to guess and that will be FedEx potentially. Jeff Lee Yeah, it's interesting, because they, they have a habit of incrementally increasing their order book with Boeing. They've they've done this before just adding one one every month or one every two months. So well. I mean, yeah, that is a likely option. Because I don't really see any other company doing that. You know, the two would be would make things a bit more interesting. Because one I yeah, I have to say I really don't know. It is odd. But it Yeah, but it has happened before and as turned out to be Fedex. So Robert Luke yeah, that's that's definitely going to be interesting to find out who that aircraft is going to. If it's FedEx, it'll be pretty much what we expected. But if it's somebody new, or somebody we didn't think of of course, since we've only selected one option. I truly believe it's going to make for an interesting discussion and potentially another article so yeah, Jeff Lee some one else trying to mask their order their multi aircraft order by just signing one per month. But, but I guess, to take a step back, it's Before this, Boeing hadn't had any triple seven freighter orders for this version of the triple seven, in fact, or for the new dash eight. So it's, yeah, it had been a while. So it's good. And we'll see as this year progresses, how those orders stack up against the triple seven dash eights. And the kinds of orders that come in when it comes to both of those programs. Because Robert Luke yeah, I'm sorry that and even you know, the their rival competitor Airbus with the A 350 orders and how it compares with the A 330 is, you know, that's starting to really ramp up on the conversion pace there. Jeff Lee Yeah, because I think we also said this before, but so many of those recent triple seven F orders have come from entities in China. And the Boeing also said this in at Cargo facts Asia in Singapore, but they, they see more potential for this type in China. And as they get nearer the end, I mean, it's still a few years away, but at the end of the program and the eventual transition, full transition to the dash eight, they, I would imagine that they're pretty keen to sell more of these. So there are they would make things pretty attractive to both existing and potentially new customers operators of the triple seven freighter. Robert Luke If you know what you're saying definitely is true, but I don't think they're going to, you know, do too bad, or, you know, they're going to actually do well considering that their their expectations are that these aircraft are going to thrive in the Asia Pacific region, because, you know, that market is one of the strongest globally right now when we're looking at the industry as a whole. So we can definitely expect to see some numbers because when you look at it from an overall perspective, it's never how you start but how you finish. So we still have a couple of months to go before the year concludes. And we'll just measure the numbers at that point to see how how well the orders I've taken. And to all our listeners. We thank you for listening and tune into us next week live from our first ever cargo Facts latam 2023 at the W Panama hotel may 15 through the 17th. Andrew Crider Well, that's an outstanding end and all the time that we have for today. To those listening thank you. For more multimedia coverage like this, check out cargo Facts connect on iTunes and Spotify and search cargo facts.com. Join us again next time. Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor . The first Cargo Facts LATAM takes place May 15-17 in Panama City. Register today.

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