PODCAST: Cebu Pacific aircraft in the headlines, younger A330 conversions continue

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, Senior Associate Editor of cargo Facts, Robert Luke.

Jeff Lee
And I’m Jeff Lee, editor of cargo Facts.

Andrew Crider
Congrats on your promotion this week. Robert, if you’re just joining us this week, I want to take a quick moment to mention B six changing their livery it’s not going to affect their cargo operations to their knowledge. But I want to issue a plea and cry for all of those in the industry. Stop changing your liveries United American all the beautiful liveries taken from us too soon. I think freighter aircraft distinct to themselves among good liveries and I’m hoping that doesn’t change this week in news.

Jeff Lee
Since you mention that, what are some, let’s go through very quickly just some of the the freighter liveries that we do like.

Robert Luke
Okay, start off Jeff since you brought it up.

Jeff Lee
Well, I mean, we have a few special liveries on freighter aircraft don’t we? On especially on some seven four sevens. But I will say that I that the first one that jumped to my mind was the the cargolux the cutaway livery on their 747 Dash eight showing, you know they have drawings have what they typically carry. And it’s kind of almost like a see through livery. I don’t know if you know the one I’m talking about. But that’s the one that came to mind.

Robert Luke
Are there any others?

Jeff Lee
I also like the Qatar Airways moved by people triple seven freighter

Andrew Crider
Kalitta air charters. I like their their livery.

Jeff Lee
The new one?

Andrew Crider
Yeah, it’s nice. I mean, there are there is i wouldn’t compare between their old one is I think old deliveries are always better. And it’s basically like the American Airlines case, their new livery has to ask to add more weight to their aircraft, which, you know, the American Airlines doesn’t have a dedicated cargo fleet. So they’re not going to run into too much problems by a I don’t know,

Jeff Lee
Wasn’t the issue with that. Because that was because of the seven eight sevens and the because of the composite material that they can’t have it just bare aluminium like the old, old airplanes.

Robert Luke
It’s possible that’s the reason why but I mean, even with some of the composite designs early in the 90s and into the early 2000s. On some of the, you know, commercial passengers, you saw that mix of metal and composite and they still kept it that same neutral color, particularly American Airlines is what I’m referencing, but going forward into choice elections for the cargo deliveries. I think I like definitely the silk way I like their colors their scheme is just smooth it’s just got this like Cadillac look to me as far as I’m concerned. And I’m a fan of DHL’s all yellow color scheme livery it just to me, has a little Tweety Bird nostalgia to it when I see it. So I would say those would definitely be my two top choices for now which can switch because I’m entitled to switch and change my mind. But for now, those are the two that I’ll go with

Jeff Lee
Yeah I mean, there are still some classic looking liveries I was thinking whether there are many retro liveries like they like do on on the passenger side of the freight it’s but I mean, there should be

Robert Luke
But a lot of these guys no longer around like Flying Tigers. I mean, I love the tiger but FedEx took them took acquisition of them. So I mean, at that point, they’re no longer relevant.

Andrew Crider
You know what livery isn’t really striking when you first see it but looks more and more beautiful, the more time you spend on it, and that’s gonna that’s got to be the Avianca cargo. I mean, it’s it there’s nothing that stands out about it, but its its its simplicity becomes elegant. In a world that’s too dynamic for my artistic taste, and you got a good view of it. EFW had the first delivery, I believe to Avianca cargo in the background or posted on social media.

Jeff Lee
I know which one, that one is going to be for that one’s going to be painted in DHL colors or DHL and Air Hong Kong, it used to be an Avianca a 330, but it’s not yet an A330 P2F for Avianca. But you are right. Avianca one does look nice and while you were saying that I thought of the LATAM one of LATAM’s earlier 767 300 BCF conversions, I think it was last year, maybe, I think it was early last year. When they they basically didn’t paint, paint it then and then didn’t have time or didn’t want to waste time painting it so it went into service straight after conversion with the green primer and everything showing on the on the fuselage. So you could see where all the work had been done on the aircraft and that was kind of cool, shiny green bits on that airplane. And on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I also thought of Lufthansa’s also because they didn’t have time or the aircraft was still waiting to be painted and they put into service all white with just a simple sentence or two on the side think it’s something like I’m waiting for my makeup or something like that.

Robert Luke
Well you know, traveling back across the world too LATAM I will bring this up even though we tried our darndest to get them to attend our inaugural CF LATAM conference the first ever in the region hosted by cargo Facts and it was a smash hit Thank you very much for all those who attended, air Caribe I will give you some props on your livery because as I was chasing you guys down to try to get you to attend. I noticed that you had a very smooth livery on your aircraft. It just got a nice three color blend and it just transitions to the engine cowls and it definitely caught my eye was like very attractive. So kudos to you guys on your concept and design. Hopefully this will encourage you to attend later on next year

Andrew Crider
Speaking of good liveries and I might trade it into a conversation about the news this week. Cebu Air Pacific they have reactivated one of their old atrs are sending it to a MRO and ho chi Minh city to be inspected and approved before it reenters service. It’s been parked for some time, and it will join its sister ship, which is still in service with the airline and that airline operates two ATRs and I think that’s very unique. I believe they’re one of the only operators of the ATR aircraft in the region. Now, we know that there was some talk about the ATR type at cargo facts Asia, there was some skepticism on whether it be accepted. So it’s nice to see one reactivated. But Jeff, that wasn’t the only Cebu Air Pacific aircraft in the headlines this week.

Jeff Lee
Right. But a slightly different nature, I guess. Cebu, one of Cebu Pacific’s A330s That obviously now is no longer in their fleet will soon take on a new role as a freshly converted freighter. And there are a couple of interesting things about this because this aircraft is a very, very young A330, between seven and eight years old, and I mean, we’ve talked about a couple of other A330s that are also very young and also headed into conversion. So this is definitely an interesting trend and it seems to be particularly the case for A330s and that’s a combination of factors including just how many were produced and the changes on the passenger side of the market and replacements for that size category. But, so, this particular one is also interestingly it is now owned by Airbus itself and it is in conversion in Alabama right now. But after it comes out of the facility it will join mas in Mexico. Now mas of course has two a330 300 p two F’s and two A330 200 P2Fs. So they are just growing the medium wide body fleet, as they’ve previously hinted at their numbers may or may not reach the kind of fleet size that they were suggesting last year. But in any case, this is one of two that they told us that there’ll be leasing from Airbus, and this one first one will be joining kind of late this year. So it’s interesting because they are one of the very, very few carriers that are growing or adding both A330s and seven six sevens. Others are using the A330 To replace the 767 others are going straight to the A330s. So, I mean, we were talking about DHL earlier of course DHL is a huge operator, both of these types and buying, again, very young feedstock for both those platforms. But yeah, mas, mas is an interesting story and they will, we’ll see what they do on the 767 front as well. But we will I’m sure this is not the only growth we’ll be seeing from them in the next couple of years. So that’s yeah, this this young aircraft with I should say with a higher maximum takeoff weight then mas’ other a330 P two F conversions, which is definitely an interesting interesting trend, and maybe we’ll see more of these younger, higher gross weight A330s head into conversion.

Andrew Crider
That will certainly be something to keep an eye on and look out for. I know as far as as Mas goes back to the livery thing that the only new livery I think unveiled.

Jeff Lee
Oh why didn’t I think of that, their new livery is actually it’s nice. I like the new livery.

Andrew Crider
It’s only one in the last five years I think is nice. Otherwise, it’s been it’s a crime against my eyesight. There’s the double thumbs up to our friends at mas. This week, cargo facts was in Denver. We all staff was gathered there for a company wide meeting gathering of our minds and resources. However, Robert couldn’t be stopped from work going the extra mile and working in Denver, you sat down with it was Crestone? Was it?

Robert Luke
That is correct, Andrew. It was it was a fantastic meeting, I have to thank Kevin Milligan and Richard shocked, Vice President of financial planning, analysis automation for joining me that morning, they really opened their doors and I could not have been more welcomed to the Colorado, the Rocky Mountain State any better than these two did for me. We talked about everything, from personal to professional but going to professional, I really got an in depth understanding of their operation. And I truly believe that this lease company, an up and coming lease company is not only going to just continue to thrive in the market, but they have a strategy that’s not going to basically force them to sink or swim. If you get my drift here, they have the capabilities to not only lease passenger and freighter aircraft and have customers for both and they’re not totally dependent upon one or the other. But they have the ability to maintain maintenance to a certain base level degree without getting into heavy checks. They also have the ability to part out they have the ability to source engines as that’s part of their main component of their organization. And not to mention, they also let me know that they do have an additional aircraft that they will be soon closing on which we will share details with you as soon as we get all of them submitted from Crestone. So thank you for giving us access to that. They also talked about how they’re not just basically aligned to one market or the other, they always continue to explore every opportunity, whether it’s the narrowbody sector or the wide body sector. And in some cases, they may even consider some regional operational capabilities on the freighter side. But they did also let me know that their current mix, when you look at the fleet asset holdings, they have about more or less passenger aircraft and they do freighter, their freighter asset holdings run around 33% of their asset portfolio right now. And they’re not in a rush to determine what should have the greatest balance because again, they have such a huge level of flexibility and maneuverability within your organization to be able to do a lot of different things. But I was very intrigued by their by their discussion. And I’m very excited to see not only this, this closing that is expected to happen soon get revealed to us first but some of the other plans that they have going forward in the future. So again, Kevin and Richard, thank you so much. And we thank you for continuing to support cargo facts and we look forward to establishing a long term partnership with you guys as we all move forward to continue to keep our happy subscribers and parties abreast of what’s going on in the air cargo industry. Back to you, Andrew.

Andrew Crider
Thank you Rob. The last note I just wanted to touch on was aviant launching the home delivery service with their tight drone. I’m not sure whether it’s Aviant is the OEM of this drone platform, but it’s always very interesting to see a home delivery service set up in Europe, this might be the largest operating home delivery drone service in the world. As far as what I know about at least Electra company, based in Manassas, Virginia, unveiled their eSTOL demonstrator, which is always a very exciting thing to see. There’s not a cargo variant yet that we know of. But I think these are interesting developments to keep monitoring. When the industry is looking to be more sustainable. This is all electric aircraft. So that’s it’s it’s the second all electric aircraft that will take flight following bristows success earlier this year, though, that’s all the news I had. If anyone else had something to wrap up, I’d encourage you all to check out our sister publication air cargo next. Our associate and colleague Courtney Blackann at that publication has produced some excellent coverage of sustainable aviation fuel in the challenges thereof and the perception of greenwashing. It’s a very thought provoking piece and I’d like everyone’s input on it. Robert, Jeff, did you have anything else? Well, then that’s all the time we’re gonna have for today. 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.