Carriers prepare for continued widebody capacity shortage in 2025

The freighter industry expects a lack of widebody capacity to continue to affect the market, leading players in the ACMI and charter segments said in a webinar today. “2025, I don’t see it [being] very different,” Richard Broekman, chief commercial officer and head of sustainability at Atlas Air Worldwide, said during Cargo Facts ’ webinar “ACMI, CMI and Charter in 2025: Challenges and Opportunities.” “There is just a structural issue on the production side that has been going on and there’s not really a big solution coming up there anytime soon.” Watch the webinar here. Boeing and Airbus struggled to deliver widebody aircraft — both freighter and passenger versions — on time in 2024 due to factors like labor shortages, engine issues, regulatory scrutiny and the Boeing strike , ending the year at about 25% fewer deliveries than last year. While most of those were passenger aircraft, the delays have led carriers and lessors to keep older aircraft in passenger service for longer than anticipated, limiting conversion feedstock. Additionally, FedEx and UPS are gradually retiring their sizeable MD-11F fleets, with FedEx aiming to complete its phaseout by 2028 . “So, there’s this perfect storm of being pretty slow, demand still continuing and an aging fleet that all will kind of lead to an extended period of shortage on the widebody freighter market,” Broekman said. Despite the shortage, Atlas Air managed to expand its large-widebody capacity , taking delivery of and putting into service three 747-8Fs and four production 747-400Fs in 2024. [caption id="attachment_57148333" align="aligncenter" width="1861"] Large-widebody freighters like the 747-400F have become a hot commodity. (Courtesy/Scan Global Logistics)[/caption] 777 conversion delays limit capacity Fellow 747 operator Air Atlanta Icelandic also grew its operational fleet in 2024. The carrier reactivated a production 747-400F (33732) purchased from China Airlines and in December started flying it on behalf of Network Aviation. Subsidiary Air Atlanta Europe began flying another ex-China Airlines 747-400F (33731) on behalf of Fly Meta in November. “We feel exactly the same thing” about the lack of widebody options, Unndor Jonsson, vice president of sales and marketing at Air Atlanta Icelandic, said during the webinar. “Except I would say for us there is this big wild card, which is the certification of the 777 freighter conversions.” The pending certification of the IAI , Mammoth Freighters and KMC 777 freighter conversion programs will hopefully be completed this year or early next year, which could free up feedstock, Jonsson said. “We usually deal with older aircraft and are experienced in operating converted aircraft and this is something that we’re quite interested in,” he said. “Once the conversions come into the market, it’s not ‘if,’ but ‘when’ we’re going to take them on.” Maximizing availability The shortage of widebody lift capacity has not hindered Chapman Freeborn, one of the largest charter brokerage firms in the industry and a subsidiary of Ireland-based Avia Solutions Group (ASG), from supporting demand for short-term charters. “Our job is to be there to find solutions and quite honestly, if I look at my emails today and see the availability that comes in, there is capacity on the market,” Russi Batliwala, group chairman of Chapman Freeborn, said during the discussion . “Obviously, if I potentially go to Unndor or Richard and say I want to wet-lease an airplane or two airplanes for the next three years, they’ll laugh at me,” Batliwala said. “But if I go to them and say I have two charters next month to go from A to B, they’ll talk to me.” Latvia-based ACMI specialist SmartLynx, another ASG subsidiary, had planned to expand beyond narrowbody freighters and could have benefited from growing demand for widebody freighters, but told Cargo Facts in May 2024 that it had put those plans on hold . “We had some A330-300s in our pipeline at that time, but we thought ‘No, it’s not a good time to step into that,’” SmartLynx Chairman and Chief Executive Edvinas Demenius said during the webinar. However, considering what the market could look like over the next few years, it may have been better to stick to the A330 plans, he added. Register now for Cargo Facts' essential regional events for industry stakeholders: Cargo Facts LATAM 2025 on Feb. 10-11 at the Pullman Sao Paulo Guarulhos Airport in Brazil; Cargo Facts Asia 2025 on March 24-26 at the W Shanghai in China; and Cargo Facts EMEA 2025 on May 6-8 at the Shangri-La Bosphorus in Turkey.

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