Listen: Asian widebodies on the horizon supplemented by Boeing narrowbodies

In this week’s episode of the “Cargo Facts Connect” podcast, Cargo Facts Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke discuss Central Airlines launching its European operations and hinting that it would soon add a second 777F to its freighter fleet. Speculation for widebody fleet growth comes as two carriers, Sky High Cargo and Buffalo Airways , near the addition of two 737 Classics while Camex Airlines moves to launch a new airline in Slovenia with 737-800BCFs. The editors also discuss the anticipated news of a relatively new entity that has placed a lease order for widebody aircraft. More details will follow on this Asia-based company and will be covered in the next podcast installment. Tune in for a discussion of these topics and more for the week ended Jan. 20, 2023. 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. Robert Luke And I'm your co-host, Robert Luke, associate editor of cargo facts. Andrew Crider I want to begin with you, you were chasing down a lead all week. Could you tell me a little bit more about it? Robert Luke I'm out of breath and tired and my legs are exhausted chasing down this lead, Andrew. But yes, I was and I have finally caught up to it. However, the only thing I can disclose at this time I have to still keep it on the down low is that an up and coming lessor in the Asian Pacific Region I won't give me the exact coordinates is about to acquire some wide bodies. And it's not a huge number, but it's still significant nonetheless, because they just recently started entering the industry and making their presence felt. So we're going to leave you guys tuned in for more information on that as we discover more but we will provide it because that's what we're known to do here at cargo facts we don't quit until it's published. Andrew Crider With a mysterious order for wide bodies that are coming from the I believe you said Southwest Asia. Robert Luke Asian Pacific and I'm leaving it right there and you but yeah, good good try. Andrew Crider It we we can bring up central airlines, which recently launched their triple seven service. And this is a service that they're providing, in part with yun Express now that their inaugural flights will connect Europe in Asia with their sole triple seven freighter. You can read that story on cargo facts.com. We covered that when they originally acquired the aircraft. But buried in the press release not getting too much attention was their attention to have an additional triple seven freighter. We spoke to Yun express the about that intention which they said they are projected to reach 20,000 tons of traffic by 2024. And we'll are expecting a second triple seven freighter soon. This is something that will be keeping a very close eye on in the coming days. Robert, back to you. Because I think that you had mentioned that you'd found a story involving a narrow body Boeing aircraft that might be appearing on our website later this afternoon. Robert Luke Yes, I was able to confirm but first before I do that, I do want to give a shout out to sky high, they actually this week began operating their first 737 classic freighter the first ever in their fleet arsenal, as they entered into the air cargo space out of the very so want to be there Dominican Republic country just a little bit below us here on the United States continent. And I do believe that there is a opportunity for a second one to be integrated into service with the carrier coming up again later on this year. So I did want to mention that and think of Carlos Cock over at extreme aviation holdings for providing us with that information definitely got to recognize where the source came from, and let them know that we're truly appreciative for allowing us to be the first to cover breaking news in the air freight industry. But going back to your original question there Andrew we do have another story coming up with Genesis leasing, taking their first freighter of its portfolio and putting it into service with Malaysian based cargo express who in turn is actually going to be operating it for Cainiao logistics out of Hangzhou China if I had got that correctly pronounced excuse me, if I haven't. So that's definitely a first that we're able to get our hands on that we're definitely appreciative of as well and I do see some more opportunity coming from Genesis as they also confirmed a second 737 800 freighter will be under contract next month. They would not disclose who that went, who that will be with just yet as the contract is still in the final stages of completion. But they did also share with me that they have two more of their 737 800 in their current portfolio being placed into feedstock for conversion with another freighter operator who they have not disclosed the name of yet either, but we will be able to reveal that once they give us permission to do so. So, you know, 2023 is starting off pretty interesting, as far as the real deliveries and conversion orders that have been placed. And I think, you know, again, with the noted slowdown in the pace of the market, as far as you know, the rates to the loads and the other issues from regulatory to COVID, post COVID, still affecting the industry. It's still from the narrowbody freighter perspective, and even in some cases from the wide body freighter angle, it's still generating pretty strong. What do you think, Andrew? Andrew Crider You know, I think in my time at cargo facts, it seems like there's there's weeks whether it's a two week combination, where there's one freighter type that really stands out and so far in 2023, both of these weeks the 737 Classic has made a lot of headlines. I don't want to spend too much time on our podcast this week talking about the classic because I know we we spent a healthy portion of last week's podcast talking about it, but we had the 737 that classics that are going to be added to the buffalo airways fleet. That's a story that's coming up on cargo facts.com later this afternoon. That fleet is so interesting because the they have been using radial engine powered aircraft I'm talking World War Two era DC threes DC for a little bit more modern. It's funny to say modern we're describing them, but modern Lockheed Electra has and the reason why they use those aircraft is to for the operations in the arctic conditions in the northern territories of Canada. So you have the 737 classic being deployed there. You also have more 737 activity out of Georgia. Georgia-based Camex airlines having big news this week, with their plans to acquire an additional 737 800 later this year, sometime in the spring, which is good to hear. They originally had plans to end 2022 with four freighters, which they fell short of that goal, but they're still adding freighters and they're spreading them out. Because they've created a new airline in Slovenia, so Camex Adria airlines will be issued to Slovenian AOC and stop rock start operating sometime in April. Once the Slovenian government grants its approval. Now that's going to be with Seven thirty seven 800 BCF on lease from ice lease. You I think that there was a lot of what we've we found out from to answer your question, Robert, where I think what we found out from our sessions at cargo facts symposium was that there's, well the market fluctuate, fluctuations allow for long term confidence in wide body freighters to keep those orders fairly consistent. In these turbulent markets, I think that more and more attention is going to be placed on the narrowbody market and to see how that fluctuates as we know the 737 800 market is has been. I don't want to say ridiculous, but it's been competitive to say the least. Robert Luke Absolutely, in fact, can go back to the buffalo airways piece that you that you featured and just mentioned. You know, first of all shout out to Mike and the rest of the team. I would I would definitely say if I could liken their fleet to, an old cliche, Old habits die hard, it just seems like the old aircraft just refuse to quit, whether it's to DC three, or to DCA, or, you know, even in some cases, the 727 you still even see some of those flying, it's just like and even the DCA you know, hit DHL, we're still waiting for confirmation, but you know, a lot of these older airframes and types are really still proven that it's very hard to get rid of them. So you know kudos to to the manual. fracturing and engineering in the design and in the quality of aircraft that came out before and during our time of existence. So switching over to the wide body freight is very briefly here. You know, you made a good point because you know what Boeing announcing that there are some extensive delays that are going to take place with the 787 Dreamliner, that is really going to impact the feedstock for the triple seven 300 ers as far as the conversion programs that are trying to get certified and how, you know, their numbers that they was projected to be able to feed into their programs are definitely going to be affected and significantly altered in the in the quantity and production rate, as you know, this in light of the new news that's being shared by Boeing. So it's going to be an interesting next couple of years to see how all of this unfolds as we move forward, as everybody still has a finish line that they're trying to cross and they're going to cross it with or without the expected number. So I think it's going to be a very interesting next couple of months and even years as we progress forward with the conversion side of the wide body segments, particularly with the triple sevens. Andrew Crider They'll certainly be more to watch in contrasting the the vintage DC threes from the buffalo airways story. Another story I want to highlight this week was lobo leasing. Now, they announced the week prior that they would lease five Pipistrel Nuva V 300, drones, to humanitarian logistics subsidy air Taurus, we spoke down with, we sat down with them and exchanged a couple of words. And this is I think, iconic for our industry in a couple of ways. Because we're just in 2023, we in the few weeks that were that we've had, we've seen two major orders from major leasing companies, these are primarily helicopter leasing companies that are purchasing drones on a speculative basis. Now Lobo leasing had purchased these drones back in 2022, then on a speculative basis, now they're finding their first customer. And I, you know, to my knowledge, this would be the first let's deal of where we're developing terms of a lease and how do you lease a drone, you know, it's going to be a lot different from from an aircraft and both local leasing and their customer or Taurus are going to cooperate together to develop a leasing model for the drone type. Now, deliveries aren't going to occur until 2025, or 2026, based around the development of the drone itself. But I think that this is something that we want to get in on the ground level, because it's going to define the industry for years to come. Robert Luke And, you know, just even hearing that brings a lot of questions. I you know, and we won't really get too deep into it, but just a couple of bullet points here. What is the term of the lease? You know, how do you define the length of the lease? When do you then how do you value the actual product? Because this is all brand new, and a new industry still, even though there's a lot of common place or regulatory rules being set in format for the drone segment is just again, how do you even establish if there are going to be any what the maintenance reserves will look like? And what the return conditions look like? And how many hours per month are allocated for usage of the drone? You know, these are a lot of segments that are that are still unknown, you know, unknown places that have yet to be discovered. So it's going to be interesting to see how the standardize the format for this going forward. Andrew Crider I these are very good questions and I think that wanted to provide further speculation is the batteries. Now a lot of the drones that we're we're monitoring are electric powered. Now that does a lot of great things for sustainability. But if you're leasing them, you're not returning a drone with the same type battery condition. Now, this is going to be this. This is also true of any traditional freighter because you're going to put hours on engines that need to be overhauled, and maintenance because it's expensive that that way, but for such a developing industry. What I mean when these drones are returned, it's it's unclear whether they will have less battery capacity than when they were first given to the companies on lease we'll have to find out Robert Luke how you appraise the value for insurance purposes. You know, all of that has, those are unknown factors that have to be identified, Andrew Crider will have to be asking more and more questions as these new lessors emerge and develop the industry. We're keeping it short and sweet for this episode, but I want to close out with two quick housekeeping items. If I can notice there's an absence of our colleague Jeff Lee, he was away on vacation. I think that's news for everyone that our colleague Jeff Lee takes vacation now while he was in Japan, he got was on a tour of ANA's maintenance facilities in Tokyo. We'll certainly be asking him questions about that experience next podcast. Furthermore, something that we should bring up is air cargo next, air cargo next is the rebrand of our sister publication Air cargo world. Air Cargo next is going to feature cutting edge content of new technologies in the freighter industry. It's the oldest publication of our brand and for the last 80 years that they've been a leading new source for the industry. Now for the next eight years are going to be leading new source covering the future of the industry. For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be doing work under that brand name, the hanging around my favorite cargo facts team. But I'm leaving you in the good hands of Robert Luke on the podcast until we decide what how we're going to format our next episode, but wanted to highlight an air cargo next and if you are interested in digital booking platforms, sustainability and drone development, I encourage you to give them a look. Robert Luke And for those who don't know in the world over air cargo is next up, so be prepared. Andrew Crider What an excellent way for us to end. For more multimedia coverage like this search cargo facts connect on iTunes and Spotify and search cargo facts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in. And join us again next time Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor . Cargo Facts EMEA, the essential event for stakeholders in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, will take place live Feb. 6-8 in Dubai. Register today.

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