Listen: A freighter-filled Farnborough

This week Cargo Facts was at the Farnborough International Airshow, which delivered a range of freighter developments, including a couple of surprises. In this episode of “Cargo Facts Connect,” Editor Jeff Lee speaks with Jim Edgar, senior consultant of Cargo Facts Consulting, about Edgar’s memories from previous airshows. Listen as the two also discuss some of the week’s major highlights, like Cargolux endorsing the 777-8F, De Havilland’s new freighter conversions, 737-800BCF orders and more. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain. 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 freight aircraft industries for over 40 years. I'm your host, Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts. And today I'm joined again by Jim Edgar, Senior Consultant at cargo facts consulting, to discuss the latest happenings at this week's Farnborough International Air Show. Jim, welcome back. Jim Edgar Thanks so much, Jeff. It's a pleasure to be with you, Jeff Lee So we've been rather busy these past four days. Here in England, the Farnborough air show and the whole world has been hearing of all the developments and announcements going on here. And we'll talk about those in a second. But just as a general point, what do you remember from your days attending this show? Jim Edgar Well, of course, the the work that goes into it ahead of time is always a key factor. Because historically, both Airbus and Boeing and now of course, Embraer, as well, but all of the OEMs and the suppliers kind of tried to save their significant news for the airshows. So, behind the scenes, there's an awful lot of work that goes into it in terms of making sure that the wording the precise announcement and statement for different deals that are put together and that, you know, like I said, that goes all the way from the OEMs to the smallest supplier, because a lot more than just aircraft orders are announced, as we saw this past week. A lot of very interesting developments in terms of concept sustainability, power plants, you know, an awful lot of announcements way beyond just aircraft orders. So, a lot goes into these air shows, and especially this one sense, this is the first one, you know, live since the COVID. Jeff Lee Right, and I was gonna say, actually, one other thing, or challenge is just the timing of these various, you know, signings, ceremonies and all that because, one you're trying to avoid, clashing with another possibly competing, Deal or announcement. But also, one thing I found was some of the these events actually clashed with the flying displays. So there's, you have to really plan your your day, well, then you don't have to know exactly where you have to be when when just be there, then immediately beelining off to somewhere else. But we did manage to catch some of the flying displays in between. And so this, this was all very exciting. And let me let's just run through some of the highlights. And I think, funnily enough, one major highlight was from Thursday, because we had cargolux, of course, an all 747 operator signing up. Or at least committing to that new triple seven dash f, with an unknown number. And this was an interesting announcement in itself. There really weren't any details, and I tried to get in touch with Cargolux and states that they couldn't give me any more details at this stage. But I think what was important, was basically for Boeing to say that cargolux is endorsing the triple seven dash f, right? Jim Edgar Yeah and as I mentioned, the, the OEMs. And suppliers have to be very careful with their announcements that they state things accurately. And this one in particular, regarding Cargolux was a little unusual in that it didn't use the words that we're more familiar with memorandum of understanding. A course it wasn't finalized at all or firm order. So the the nomenclature that we're accustomed to hearing in relation to an inner craft order, were not there. It was just simply that Cargolux hadn't had made their selections. So I have no idea exactly what that means, except that I'm very sure that had Boeing not received approval for that particular wording, they wouldn't have done it. So my guess is they're very sure, and that the deal will go through but it was a little bit different than what we're used to in the past. terms of positioning exactly what the Uh, what the situation was so, but Jeff Lee also kind of like a, almost like a hidden surprise, the very last major announcements only on the commercial side. And I bet they weren't eager to at least hash out some of the details, you know, to the point that they could tell the public that this was happening. And so yeah, I think that that was obviously a good, good endorsement for the new triple seven that that if another kind of highlight for me was the was De Havilland of Canada, launching a convert or range of conversions for the dash eight 400. And along the same vein, we had Ethiopian Airlines signing up to be probably the first operator of the large cargo door version of the dash eight 400. I think, you know, given that Ethiopian already has a large passenger fleet of the q four hundreds, the fact that they've been just expanding their their freighter fleet on all fronts. I think it wasn't that much of a surprise that they that they're so keen on getting these regional turboprop freighters. Jim Edgar I think that, you know, on our consulting, side cargo fat consulting, we have been very clear of the impact of E commerce and the high growth rates and the proliferation of E commerce service. And I think, really, that both the announcements by De Havilland as well as all of the narrow body jet aircraft announcements during the week are testimony to the fact that ecommerce is really playing a significant role in fueling aircraft conversions. And thus, freighters aren't just limited to large wide bodies or even narrow bodies, but getting into the regional turboprops. So I think this is a function of what e commerce is doing to the industry and its impact into even the smallest of the freighter aircraft. Jeff Lee Right, because, obviously, you know, Africa is such a huge continent. There aren't just that aren't that many Freighter operators, you know, flying around that and some, a lot of airports aren't big enough for the conventional freighter jets. So I think we will continue to see Ethiopian getting adding more or other African operators, looking more closely at regional turboprops and speaking of regional freighters. We actually had Astral aviation in Kenya, signing up, or committing to the new Embraer e 190 freighter conversions. And I was able to talk to Sanjeev Astral, and he said that he wanted he liked the range of the e 190. And what's interesting is that he he said that he had been talking to Embraer for a number of years about a possible E jet freighter conversion. And I was also able to talk to Embraer, here at the show. And they are they say they've seen a lot of interest. And that the I mean, they are they're really excited about this program. And I think they think that it fills that gap between, obviously, you know, the smaller turboprops and kind of some of the larger 7 three sevens as well as fulfilling that replacement function function for some older classics, like the 7373 hundreds. So, yeah, this is a really interesting program isn't a brand to now be in the freighter conversion market as well. Jim Edgar And over the last several weeks, especially there have been different statements and of course, we've read articles and about this and about Embraer's interest in getting involved more heavily in freighter so this would just be a natural conclusion to this in terms of getting into that market. And that was that was a significant development and announcement for them. Jeff Lee Yeah, and I think you know, generally we've seen all this activity in the in the regional freighter space. And it's, it is really interesting. Now we have all these new new programs and new freighter types coming in So this, obviously is where a lot of the growth is. But going back to something that we've seen for a while now it's known as 7378. Hundreds, of course, we had a few deals involving this type as well. For example, BBAM already one of the largest customers for the 737 800 BCF adding yet more. And they say they actually they already have customers, and they've got more customers than they have aircraft. So yeah, well, 737 NGS. Jim Edgar Yeah, and, of course, IAI announced their STC from easa, Georgia and airlines and BCS and an aer cap for goal some BCF. So, really, every segment was pretty active in terms of the air show. And I think it's fair to say that we haven't seen the number or in terms of announcements, or even number of aircraft in this segment in the standard body, and certainly not in the regional either jet or turbo prop. So this is going to be something that we need to get accustomed to a lot of activity as, as the E commerce trickles down. And, and speed and reliability or premium for E commerce and distances, become an issue so that dedicated trucking can't really be effectively employed in that segment. So I think this is something that definitely is a is a high growth segment for our industry, rather than just the the wide body market. Jeff Lee Yeah. And, of course, we had Georgia airlines as well. We've talked to them before, but now they're adding 737 bcfs of their own to so just, yeah, a whole range of extensions. So this clearly is a sign of just the sentiment and confidence on the part of, you know, all these operators and lessors. Just, you know, where do you see the Freighter market heading, we actually had the manufacturers releasing that market forecasts, I think there's just a lot of optimism in in the freight space. Jim Edgar And I have to admit in a little plug here, but I'm really looking forward to October's cargo facts symposium. And if you haven't had a chance, go online and look at some of the panels that are being put together. But we're going to talk a lot more about that in San Diego. But there's so much going on in our segment, one of the things that I was struck with Jeff, that I mentioned to you, in a side conversation was I would get the daily recaps from various sources on what happened. And the very first day on Monday, one of the sources listed eight major events that they were recapping, and I noticed that of the eight three involved freighters and I thought isn't that a testimony to the importance and significance of the air cargo market including freighters at at the to the industry and how far we've come and the prominence that it will continue to play. So I'm really looking forward to cargo facts symposium coming up and, and what's planned for there where we can discuss with the the operators and suppliers and interested parties, some of these developments. So a lot going on. A lot to keep track of, and a lot to kind of forecast and anticipate in terms of trends. Yeah, Jeff Lee that's a good point. And we do look forward to the industry coming together at cargo facts symposium this October. That's all we have time for today. To those of you listening thank you for tuning in to \this episode of cargo facts Connect. For more multimedia content like this, check out cargo facts.com and search cargo facts connect on iTunes and Spotify. Join us again next time. Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor .

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