Podcast: Azul steps into next-gen era with A321P2F launch

Jeff Lee
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 Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts and it’s Friday, the 14th of February. At this week’s Cargo Facts LATAM 2025 in Sao Paulo, one major theme was the Latin American region’s diversity of freighter types. In Brazil, for example, while 737 Classics continue to grow in number, the country is also home to the only two carriers in the region with A321 freighters. At the conference, my colleague, Senior Associate Editor Robert Luke, checked in with Azul’s Cargo Fleet and Operations Manager Dario Matsuguma ahead of the airline’s launch of A321P2F operations this weekend.

Robert Luke
Hello, Dario. Thank you for joining.

Dario Matsuguma
How are you doing? Thank you very much, Rob.

Robert Luke
Thank you. I’m doing well today. You guys are getting ready to begin operations with your first a 321, freighter piece to air from EFW conversion. It’s scheduled to begin operations on this Saturday. Is that correct?

Dario Matsuguma
That’s correct, yeah, just waiting for the final Brazilian authority ANAC approval. We expect to have this the next two days.

Robert Luke
So tell me a little bit about the process transitioning from the 737, classic freighters that you previously operated as you begin to enter the next generation type with the A 320 ones.

Dario Matsuguma
Yes, we, we saw. Azul cargo is a is a business unit inside Azul so it’s not a cargo airline, and use azul to fly those airplanes, these airplanes. And Azul we start flying the three sevens, 400 in 2018 an agreement for five years, 2023 and decided to expand until 2026 next year. The point is that when was to expire the agreement this we saw that was no aircraft available or suitable available, availability to replace that airplane. The 400 is a classic airplanes. There’s no I can’t say that’s very difficult. As I said before here in the panel is very difficult to run, just two freighters inside a huge environment of passenger airplanes. And adding a difficult to this is a Boeing airplane inside a non Boeing environment for passengers. There’s no more passenger airplanes. I can say that the Boeing 737, 400 did a great job at Azul Cairo. Big point is that there’s no suitable environment for it. We need to have specific pilots, for sure, but the spare parts not nothing common with the other fleets, ATRs E1s E2s and 320s 321s and 330s and also Cessna caravans. There’s no common entity for nothing, no, no, what? Nothing, no parts common, we need to have specific stock of parts. We need to have a specific technician or mechanics to have skills on board. It’s very difficult, because we have 600 technicals, 600 mechanics. We cannot train everybody, but with specific mechanics for the locations we fly, the 737, we train everybody. But along the time there are some movements, some shifts, and we need to retrain. And sometimes the technical area was not able to to to train more more people for that, sometime we have some promise for aircraft release. For example, due to the lack of mechanics with the training, adequate training. For that, everybody yet assist airplane must be twin. That’s there a safety point in our in our life, and sometimes the schedule didn’t match with with the people on ground. And we have some a little trouble of this. But the points that the Secretary sent 400 for us for the specific city pair from Campinas, from analysis, we always operate in maximum full payload. And the maximum full payload is not the maximum structural payload of the desert plane. Due to the lack of fuel tech, there is no enough fuel to fly full payload, screwdriver companies, man house, plus alternate and so on. And we are always departed from continuous human hours with less, less than full payload, that suitor payload and limited by fuel tank, any, any problem with with weather in Manaus, for example, or the alternate, you need to have another far away alternate. We need to cut payload. We need to cut cargo. And then is very useful to have this in Manaus route, in middle of Amazon, no, no. So availability of your airports to be adequate, or would your alternates airports? Then I can say that wheel per at the maximum capacity of the 37th floor to. Times, three times more than the average word flight hours per day by the world fleet, three times more. Three to four times more is 11 flight hours per day along the year for both airplanes, it’s not, not so easy to fly another plane that way. And boy in boys fly around the world. The passenger and freighters. 400 fly around 2.923 flight hours per day in average. And we push a little bit this fleet, you know, so and they did a great job. That’s, that’s the as a in the final, at the final of this operation, we already returned one wonderful in December, the second one, we expect to return on March, in one month more. But I can say they did a great job. They open they open the market for Zuckerberg, for freighters, and we learn a lot. All of the airline work. Learn a lot with that airplane, but we decide to jump or to shift to A321, due to similarity and commonality with our passenger fleet, the synergy is the key factor for us. We have more capacity. We will also analyze the make a study for 800 BCFs, but replacing 400 by 800 BCFs, we would face almost the same problem with the mindset and infrastructure for this operation would be the same, the same, true born airplanes inside a huge environment with no more airplanes. 800 BCF is a nice airplane, also in terms of capacity, range and cost per totalometer. It’s very similar with the 321, but with side to jump with four Airbus freighter. Due to the environment, we have with 6220s and key 20 ones, passenger airplanes. We can use the same common pilots. These are just minor training, just online training of six hours of the difference from CEO to new basically due to the engines between 500 and it is a very minor training. They report it maintenance people, the same thing, just maybe two or three days of a class for difference and also for the cargo Virgo system for them.

Robert Luke
So just understanding that the lack of commonality and the fact that that might have been the only freighter type available for you at the time when you began introduction into the air cargo sector, the 737 classic played its part for you, and it did a phenomenal job and respect based on your comments. So you also focused on the fact that there was familiarity with the eight 321 because you obviously have quite a few in your passenger side, minus a few different changes of power plants. In addition to that, what would the role of the eight 321 be when you’re comparing it to the 737 classic, as you continue to evolve your cargo operations, will it be similar, or are you now evolving into a new route structure, as well as new markets and clientele?

Dario Matsuguma
We would expand our our network. We can get more range, a little bit more range. There’s no this constraint within some power to my house, for example. There’s no problem with the fuel capacity. We decide to not have the extra fuel tank in the valley. This is 3000 liters of additional fuel capacity that create three cubic meters of cargo. We don’t need the extra fuel for our regular flights, maybe a special chart would be necessary, but we decide to not have an extra tank versus less cargo capacity, and due to the extra range we have, against, compared with with the 400 and we can say that, due to the structure, structure will have, technically speaking, so we can have more reliability. We had a lot of problem AOG problems with 737 is not a fault or a problem with the 737, but our internal structure, we were, I can’t say we were not so prepared to fly just two airplanes separate from from the other other fleets. There’s no even, even, it’s not in terms of spare parts, but I can say mindset, okay, to get support for that airplane, and we expect you to fly more than 77 the 7711 if light hours per day would be the limit. It’s very difficult to push more than this, but we are very comfortable to fly Islamic flight towers as regular term in the 321 okay, then we have extra capacity in payload for 17 to 27 tons, maybe 28 the end of this year, there’s an SCP of EFW coming to remove the balance, the balance mask we have data COVID, and we’ll have more flight daily utilization capacity, 30% more in the average and our day, our idea to Spend our operation to South America, we have some markets in Argentina, even both sides, Montevideo, even Chidi in Santiago or Lima. But we are starting. We need a study our cargo department and plenty people they may have studied or for potential, potential market that could bring to Brazil or feed these markets, connecting with our international flight or international carriers, partners, zoo partners.

Robert Luke
Okay, so that being said, um, do you expect to experience similar challenges of just operating two aircraft, one specifically for dedicated freighters, as you experience with the 730 sevens. Or do you expect a different outcome now that next generation type?

Dario Matsuguma
We we are. We believe that the commonality, the commonality with all technical structure, we will become more we become more easy to operate these airplanes. Okay, okay, and we have in passenger airplane. We have some dedicated team for for each fleet, and we decide to have a dedicated team for the freighter, yes

Robert Luke
Does that mean that there’s potential expansion of the fleet, as you have now a dedicated team for it, in addition to that, from a cost basis, do you see with more freighters based on your new marketing concepts and route planning, that the cost will actually be reduced with the next generations freighters?

Dario Matsuguma
Yes, sure. For sure, less you borrow more efficiency in terms of payload per per flight. And as I said before, the cost per tone kilometer is lesser than 730 7.9% to less than the 400

Robert Luke
what has been the customer feedback? So far, as you are preparing to introduce the a 321?

Dario Matsuguma
We are very excited. Okay, yes, we have an event last last week, so introduces airplane to the market. So invited some key partners for for the cargo market and also authorities and we introduced this airplane to the market. We are very, very excited to to have this airplane fly about capacity, reliability, and to expand the new new routes they are they are asking us a lot of questions and opportunities they are getting for this new fleet.

Robert Luke
How many does Azul and the aircraft business unit envision, as far as the a 321, freighter time, and are there any other types under consideration as you evolve and expand your operation?

Dario Matsuguma
We can. We can. our lesson. Lessons Learned. Okay, 7370, we had a bad, not a bad decision, but a bad environment to fly that airplane. What reinforce the search for synergy in the operation? We learn also from the our e1 operation. We know that you know that we we adapt or converted some E, 195, in cargo, in cargo airplanes, plus f cabin, we remove our fleet all seats. We import FCPS. Onward. We introduce a new concept of fire detection system. We replace smoke vector instead the smoke detectors along the cabin. We install thermal cameras capable to detect heat and trigger alarm in the front here in the cockpit, life like a Class F, Class E, airplane, but we use the same flight crew, the same maintenance structure, flying this car, where planes Class F together with the passenger and worked very well, very well, with a dedicated freighters, dedicated freighters, and their time is already gone because we are replacing for new fleet. Just they don’t compete each one. There’s a separate market, just the class half with 60 cubic meters. 11, sorry, nine tons of payload is good for package. We start a strong operation with a strong partner with with us. In the past, carrying only package for E commerce, and works very well, but nowadays is a very costly operation of Class F, okay, okay, it’s not a cargo plane. We need to load and load totally manually, yes, and is two hours in half figure out time to load and load. And we have a lot of problems also with too much fragile. FCB is stronger for fire. Can keep fire more than six, six hours, six hours. We made a test with the Brazilian authority with fire and thermal detector cameras outside. Sometimes you see there’s no fire, but you put put the hand on. The FCB is very hot, and the camera captures more than 700 degrees centigrade inside the fcbs, okay? And they certainly assured that can can have more than six hours, but because, you know, proteins, okay, six hours is a no for us. But when we open the FCPS after the end of the test with more oxygen going on, the fire starts again. We close again and keep getting more more more fire inside with no evidence of fire or even damage in the fcbs outside the very reliable for fire, for fire containment system, but not sufficient strong for data. Operation to open, close, open, closing the load with a with box, a special box to load. Okay. But is became a very costly operation, okay, and we are looking for alternative for for that. But as I said here in the panel, the freighters are complement to our structure of daily network. Okay, we are a passenger line that flies freighters. But we need to first try to use, or optimize, or we use full payload of the our baby capacity. That’s the reason that we can spread. We fly to 160 CVS in Brazil, more than double of our competitors. We reach CVS that no, no. Water is reaching nowadays, okay, but, and from these cities with our network or for Turkey surface services, okay? Now, Chief, 5000 5000 cities in Brazil, and 2000 cities, we can deliver shipping within 48 hours, okay? Of shipping. Shipping time is very efficient due to the strong network we have and process that we develop for for the shipments. But we, we can, yes, we can think about other other fleets for special markets.

Robert Luke
Okay. Would the Embraer variant be under consideration as a suitable replacement for your class app that you deserve?

Dario Matsuguma
Yes, we, we participate also in this Embraer studies in 2024, or five years ago. Okay, giving that for the engineering team, operational team, some tips from our operations point of view, what would be find what we not necessarily so from a cargo operator point of view, at that time, Azul was negotiating with the lessor and also Embraer to get, maybe to get some airplanes, but I really don’t know how this deal is progressing. Progressing? Okay, there’s no information, new information about this, but I think that would be a special market to fly 90 or 95 freighters.

Robert Luke
Okay? And on that note that I always promise I’m not gonna, I wasn’t gonna hold you up too long, but I do. Thank you for joining me for this podcast session and giving us more insight and understanding of your business unit cargo operations within Azul, its current welcoming of the a 321 freighter. And your plans moving forward. Thank you so much Dario. I appreciate your time.

Dario Matsuguma
Thank you Rob.

Jeff Lee
That was Dario Matsuguma, Cargo Fleet and Operations Manager at Azul, talking with Robert Luke, Senior Associate Editor of Cargo Facts. And that’s all the time we have today. For more coverage of the freighter aircraft and AAM market, visit cargofacts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in, and join us again next time.