EFW bumps up A330F redelivery target to 25 per year by 2023

In response to increasing demand for A330 passenger-to-freighter conversions, Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW) is adding new conversion lines for the platform in China and the United States to increase redeliveries to up to twenty-five units per year by 2023, the company said at last week’s Cargo Facts EMEA. Existing and prospective customers had complained of A330 conversion slots being unavailable until 2024 . EFW now expects a total of six conversion lines across three sites will be equipped to handle A330 conversions by 2023. Next year will see the first A330 inductions at facilities in mainland China and the United States. ST Engineering confirmed to Cargo Facts that the Chinese facility is Shanghai Technologies Aerospace Company Limited (STARCO), a JV of ST and China Eastern Airlines that began operations in 2005 and has hangars at both Shanghai Hongqiao (SHA) and Pudong (PVG) airports. An additional conversion site will be established at one of ST Engineering’s U.S.-based facilities in either Mobile (BFM), San Antonio (SAT), or Pensacola (PNS). [caption id="attachment_413936" align="alignright" width="560"] EFW has so far converted nine A330P2Fs in Dresden. (Photo/EFW)[/caption] “We'll activate both lines next year,” said Thomas Centner, director of sales and technical marketing at EFW. “A certain learning curve will be necessary as well, and by 2023, we’ll have roughly up to twenty-five [A330] conversions per year.” Since program launch, EFW has converted nine A330P2Fs at its own Dresden (DRS) facility and one A330-300P2F (127, ex-Hi Fly) at the ST facility in Singapore (QPG). While DRS will continue to convert A330s, ST’s Singapore facility will focus on A320 family conversions and other projects, EFW said. Despite new A330P2F conversion orders, commitments and lease agreements from companies including CDB Aviation, MasAir, Altavair, MNG Airlines and Turkmenistan Airlines, EFW’s current known A330 backlog is unlikely to be sufficient to support high-rate production without additional orders. DHL Express, which will soon take redelivery of its eighth A330-300P2F (1477, ex-Hi Fly) and has options for ten more, recently told Cargo Facts that it is in discussions with EFW and hopes to secure some slots for 2022. As well as ramping up its A330 conversion capacity, EFW will also begin its first A321 conversion at the VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering facility at BFM in July 2021, after inducting its first A321 at the ST Aerospace (Guangzhou) Aviation Services facility in Guangzhou (CAN) in December 2020. That aircraft (1017, ex-R Airlines) will soon join SmartLynx Malta, on lease from Vallair, Singapore, Shanghai and Guangzhou also host freighter conversions for Boeing, with 767-300BCFs at ST, and 737-800BCFs at Boeing Shanghai Aviation Services (BSAS) and Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Company Limited (GAMECO).

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