Listen: April showers bring more 737 Classic movements

This past week continued the theme of 737 additions, and this time with a new player . In this episode of “Cargo Facts Connect,” Cargo Facts Deputy Editor Jeff Lee and Associate Editor Andrew Crider discuss how e-commerce giant Mercado Libre continues to shake up the freighter fleets of Latin American carriers. They then look at how a number of 737-300F and -400F developments created a banner week for the 737 Classic family. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain. Andrew Crider 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 your host Andrew Crider, Associate Editor of cargo facts. Jeff Lee And I'm Jeff Lee, deputy editor. Andrew Crider You know, I started April by setting aspirations to not overtly cover the 737 in the news, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to move the goalposts now that gol has announced that it will enter the cargo market by ordering 6 737 800 F's to begin cargo operations on behalf of Mercado libre as a new cargo operator in the Latin American market. The Commerce carrier is connected to quite a few different developments this week. Isn't that right, Jeff? Jeff Lee That is right, and let me just say about, you know, this deal with gol and Mercado Libre is certainly an interesting one, and probably a bit unexpected. But we have seen mercado libre expanding its dedicated freighter operations with partners in Latin America and South America. And gol, of course, being a huge 73 Seven operator generally, it makes sense. And it does remind people of the deal that Amazon signed with sun country airlines a few years ago, although this one's slightly different in its nature. But in any case, you know, six, seven three seven eight hundred freighters certainly isn't a huge amount. And we know that there's the option for them to double that as well. But you know, in terms of gol and Mercado Libre. What's also interesting is that Mercado Libre, one of Mercado Libre is partners is Aeronaves, TSM in Mexico. And Aeronaves TSM recently started flying one or 2 7374 hundreds for Mercado Libre, in that company's yellow livery. And the connection between Aeronaves TSM and one of the stories we did this week, which was transit in Hawaii, selling its first and only 737 400 to aeronaves TSM. It's interesting because aeronaves TSM has been, has recently started buying more of the seven three seven classics. And in fact, that airline has now acquired between 10 and 15 Classics. Now, not all of these might end up in actual service. They may have acquired some of those parts. But this is from a carrier that has been operating CRJs MD 80S and DC nines and suddenly they're expanding into this pretty large fleet of 737 Classics. And I think I wouldn't be surprised if much of that was driven by ecommerce growth and Mercado Libre. So we'll we'll see. But in terms of transair, the this company has not been flying at 737 two hundreds since that an accident last last year. And we had been wondering what they were going to do with this 737 400 conversion that they ordered. And now we have our answer. Andrew Crider Jeff didn't we speak to someone yesterday and another Latin American operator and how they might be transitioning towards 7374 Hundreds as opposed to next generation freighters to replace their seven to seven to hundreds, Jeff Lee right. I mean, interesting Latin American theme this week, but yes, we spoke to las cargo in Colombia. And that airline has been a long time operator of seven, two sevens. But it started transitioning away from those 7 two sevens they told us despite how much they love it, you know, it is kind of time to move on, as it were. And so they have already introduced 1737 300 and a 400. So, you know, I guess they are looking to bring on more 7374 hundreds in at least in the short term, but in the longer term. They are of course looking at eight hundreds as well. In fact the they've been looking at it hundreds for a while and they've been putting off their own conversions with Boeing. But You know, in the longer term sort of in the next four to five years, the plan is to add eight hundreds to the operation as well. And it sounds like they've got some, some pretty interesting growth growth plans. Andrew Crider But those aren't the only seven three sevens classics that we've covered either. We also talked about continue growth in my indo airlines making their 6 737 classic to their fleet, meaning that Indonesia is now home to as many as 19 737 classic freighters. The same week, airwork took his own 737 400 fleet past 11 units with the transfer of the 1992 Vintage unit 25184 from ASL airlines, France. I believe that we'll have more updates on ASLS continued restructuring of their fleet as the months go on. But before we depart today on 737 News, we're have two stories that are possibly developing to tease for next week. I we're looking at the conversion of what could be staecos 50th BCF freighter, for an arrival for carrier in Africa, and we're also looking at developments in Latin America. We'll have more hopefully next week on those two developments. 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 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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