Destination Unknown: What the future may hold for freighters

Maindeck vs. belly

Regarding the freighter:belly ratio, ACMG’s baseline assumes that the 50/50 historical balance between the two won’t change much. However, the fleet of passenger jets currently operating today outnumber freighters by roughly a 10:1 margin, which is putting “downward pressure on the demand for freighters,” ACMG says.

According to the Airbus forecast, the market share for belly capacity is expected to continue growing, especially on inter-continental routes, due to the addition of larger, more cargo-capable passenger aircraft. The need for these additional aircraft, Airbus said, is being driven by passenger traffic growth that is higher than freight traffic growth. This was especially true on the trans-Pacific segment, where additional belly capacity pressured maindeck freighter activity. In addition, new widebody passenger types, such as the A350-1000, will be even more cargo friendly, capable of carrying 21 tonnes from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, while a 747-400 can carry just 8 tonnes, Airbus said.

As a result Airbus assumed that overall cargo traffic demand would grow by 4.4 percent over the 20-year period, while belly traffic would grow at a faster, 4.8 percent rate.

However, there has been some recent anecdotal evidence that freighters are on the rise in some sectors. For example, the European air cargo hubs in Brussels and Munich reported last month that they have seen a rise in freighter-only volumes, compared to pax bellyhold freight. Brussels Airport, the ninth-largest European cargo airport by volume in 2014, reported that maindeck cargo traffic increased sharply, by 8.2 percent in September 2015, compared to September 2014. Munich Airport, meanwhile, said that between January and September 2015 its freight-only traffic carry grew by about 33 percent, year-over-year. “Freighters are essential to all the east-west markets,” said Boeing in its 2014 WACF forecast. “Freighters carry about 72 percent of all air cargo carried between Europe and Asia, as well as 43 percent of all cargo carried between Europe and North America.” Boeing predicted that freighters are projected to carry more than half of the world’s air cargo for the next 20 years, “even as lower-hold cargo capacity expands faster than freighter capacity.”

Dedicated freighter services offer significant advantages, Boeing added, including more predictable and reliable volumes and schedules, greater control over timing and routing, and a variety of services for outsize, hazardous or other special cargo. “The Asia-to-North America market requires about 70 daily freighter flights,” the Boeing report said. “It would take about 150 daily passenger flights to provide service equivalent to 10 daily of those freighter flights.”