Listen: Widebody freighter happenings and expectations for the Dubai Airshow

Charles Kauffman
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 Charles Kauffman, your host and senior editor of cargo facts.

Jeff Lee
And I’m Jeff Lee, deputy editor of cargo facts.

Charles Kauffman
Those of you tuning in today. Thank you for joining us. Jeff. It was great to see you. But is it last month now? It’s already been a few weeks in Las Vegas for Carfax symposium, the way I remember it, it seems just like yesterday.

Jeff Lee
Yeah, it was already two weeks ago. And yes, it was lovely to connect and reconnect with a record number of delegates during this important event, as well as catch up with you and Caryn and everyone on the team. And I’m now back in Hong Kong in quarantine.

Charles Kauffman
That, that doesn’t sound quite as fun.

Jeff Lee
No, but at least I can see quite a few freighters taking off from from the airport here. So it’s not too bad.

Charles Kauffman
Yeah, it definitely could. Could be worse though. What are some of the aircraft you’ve seen recently?

Jeff Lee
I obviously have seen a lot of DHL aircraft. I’ve seen some while aerologic, triple sevens southern triple sevens, of course, cathay and Atlas seven four sevens. I also did just see an S seven airlines 737 800 BC F. So that was quite interesting. And of course, you know, that plane is very distinctive.

Charles Kauffman
Yeah, no doubt there are only a few in service. So it’s fun to write about an aircraft and then actually watch it take off. I don’t see that quite as often in Seattle, say for the Amazon air fleet. But anyway, going back to cargo facts symposium, as we had predicted, going into the conference, or many of the discussions did look ahead to the future of wide body production freighter options, particularly beyond that ever important ICAO co2 reduction implementation deadline in 2027. For those of you who were not there with us live, we have written about many of the key takeaways from cargo pack symposium. Those stories are available to subscribers on our website. But you know, in my opinion, just as interesting has been that in recent weeks, we’ve seen some pretty major developments in the wide body space, just since the conference. Jeff, we published a story last week on a transaction involving 274 7/8 graders. Why was this story important?

Jeff Lee
So sometime last year, we reported that Saudia cargo had both of its 747 Dash eight F’s parked in the desert there since since very early 2020. And those aircraft have not operated a single commercial flight since the since the onset of the pandemic, but it now appears they will finally be leaving Saudi Arabia and put to work because aircraft finance Germany through a an Irish subsidiary has facilitated a deal to acquire these aircraft from Saudi and remarket them to an aviation conglomerate in China called Hong Yuan group. And I think Hong Yan has been working with Aero trans cargo and using some of the 747 free to capacity between China and Europe. But still, this is a bit of a surprising move, isn’t it?

Charles Kauffman
Well, certainly going from leasing 747 400 capacity to owning or at least committing to 7478 cache capacity on a long term basis is a pretty significant move you know, but we read you know that the homeland group is heavily involved in cross border e commerce flows between China and Europe and there’s a lot of activity especially now that it’s tiny now Alibaba is logistics affiliate has opened it’s it’s it’s the edge airport facility and so we expect to see activity between between China and and some of Alibaba has other regional hubs to the edge to pick up in the months ahead. And yeah, I don’t Think you know whole UN at this stage is not really set up to operate 747 Dash eight freighters they they have been in talks with airbridge cargo to potentially operate those aircraft on a CMI basis. But we’ve heard from airbridge that your agreement is not yet final. And so at this point we could still see these aircraft end up on another operators POC. Home anyone is looking to reactivate the aircraft by early next year. They’re targeting the first quarter. And we have seen the first freighter ferried from Jetta to an MRO in Sharjah. So, yeah, we should have a clearer picture pretty soon. That seven four sevens aside, you know that. We’ve, we’ve we’ve mentioned multiple times on this podcast that production for that better crap program is coming to an end. This week, we reported a story on a major development from Airbus. Regarding the details of their forthcoming, a 350 freighter, what did we learn there, Jeff?

Jeff Lee
Right, we finally have a bit more detail on on this upcoming freighter. So Airbus has confirmed to cargofacts that the 350 freighter will have a maximum of 30 pallet positions and a maximum structural payload of 109 tonnes over 4700 nautical miles, or 92 tonnes of volumetric capacity at 6000 nautical miles.

Charles Kauffman
Right. And, yeah, we’ve known for, for some time now that Airbus launched this program, why are these these new data points meaningful?

Jeff Lee
Well, up until now, they had been some uncertainty as to the exact specifications of this freighter because Airbus CEO was deliberately vague in July, and only is said that the payload would be above 90 tons. And so now we know that it’s actually quite a bit more than 90 tonnes. And that makes the aircraft much more competitive with the triple seven freighter which has maximum structural payload of around 107 tonnes over 4970 nautical miles. And Airbus has also confirmed to us the the actual length of the A 350 freighter, and it’s going to be just a tiny bit shorter than the passenger 1000 variant. Meanwhile, Boeing, of course, as we know, was planning to launch a freighter based on the triple 7x platform. But there’s still quite a lot to define with that program. And we’ll have to see how it compares with the current triple seven F.

Charles Kauffman
Yeah, I think that’s that’s a good point. You know, it’s obviously a good benchmark to compare the A 350 grader to the legacy triple seven Raider and some of the other wide bodies on the market that are in use today. But we do know that the triple 7x Raider is likely right around the corner, so to speak, at least in terms of, you know, the the time that it takes to develop a new freighter variant for for that program. Speaking of events and developments next week at the Dubai airshow returns, obviously, these forums and air shows are often a good opportunity for for companies to like like Boeing and Airbus to announce major orders. Looking ahead to Dubai, do you expect we’ll hear more from either Boeing or Airbus at the event?

Jeff Lee
Well, I mean, I would think that the the airshow would be a great place to launch in the production widebody freighter or to make an announcement on the launch customer, particularly if it’s one of the region’s operators. And we know that several airlines have always liked to make big announcements at this shows, uh, we’ll see. But I mean, what else should we be watching for next week during the show?

Charles Kauffman
Yeah, that’s a good question, I think part from possible developments in the wide body production freighter space, I think or at least I’m I’m hoping, you know that we might see some of the triple seven orders that have trickled in in recent months and have been attributed to unidentified customers in Boeing’s Orderbook. Some of these orders could be revealed during the show. You know, and then production freighters aside, there, there has been interest for the triple seven 300, er passenger to freighter conversion in, in the Gulf region. So, you know, I’ll be watching for firm orders and commitments with either AI, which has cut metal on, on the conformity aircraft for the triple seven 300 vrsf. And potentially orders for the mammoth or the other conversion programs that are out there as well. And, of course, the other medium wide body conversion programs and and the narrowbody conversion programs might see some orders and commitments as well. Certainly, those types of announcements have surfaced in the past at air shows, and it remains, you know, we’ll see what exactly happens next week. Speaking of the archives, do you have a sense for, for what we saw at the last Dubai airshow that was what in 2019 seems like forever ago.

Jeff Lee
It was in 2019. And it’s interestingly, I remember our story from that air show was, but sometimes the returns were absent. And I mean, I remember there being an Egypt a 330 200 P two F. There weren’t actually no orders involving three two aircraft. But of course, that was because we didn’t may be because partly because it was a flurry of free to activity at the Paris Air Show in June that year. And we saw a whole bunch of 737 800 BCF orders, among others, I think, but obviously, you will soon find out. But for me, perhaps the best way forward is not to expect anything at all. So I can be pleasantly surprised if something happens.

Charles Kauffman
Yeah, I don’t know about that viewpoint I’d rather I’d rather see some, you know, this is this is the first return to a live Air Show, major in person air show since the onset of the pandemic, and I think there’s a lot of momentum and excitement. So I’m really hoping for some, some movement from from some of the large players in our space, but yeah, we’ll see what happens within just a few days. That is all the time we have for today. To those of you listening. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of cargo packs connect. And for more multimedia content like this, check out carfax.com and search cargo bags connect on iTunes and Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts. Join us again next time.