Listen: CF EMEA highlights and more

This past week, the industry met in person at Cargo Facts EMEA in Dubai, a welcome chance for many to physically greet one another and discuss what’s happening with air cargo and freighters. In this episode of “Cargo Facts Connect,” Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee and Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke discuss several news items that emerged from the event, including Astral Aviation’s A330P2F plans and updates on conversions, lessors and operators. The editors then look at other developments that added to what was already a busy week. 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 Robert Luke, associate editor at cargo facts as well. Jeff Lee And I'm Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts. Andrew Crider The editorial team has just returned home from Dubai where we hosted cargo Facts emea 2022. It was a fantastic week full of insightful contributions from the industry's leading experts and thought leaders. Robert, this was our first cargo Facts emea together as new editors on the Cargo facts team. What were your biggest takeaways from the week? Robert Luke Hey, I just want to say it was in a fantastic event that was well put together had a blast finally getting to meet the team face to face post pandemic. Great interaction. I learned that widebody conversions will continue for years to come. Cargo growth is estimated at 3.3% Over the next 20 years. That's amazing. Seven three seven next gens grew by 50 units and the A300 Boeing seven six sevens dominate the medium wide bodied market for now but that Airbus A 330 is rapidly on the rise. I also found out attending this wonderful event that 22 to 23% of the wide bodies have been slated for freighter conversions. On some other news, Astral aviation expects to grow its fleet and told us that it will be adding a 330 P2F to the actual current operations that they are expanding on right now. They are also still considering some a 320 ones, but they are just basically looking forward to taking the a 330s as they confirmed it at the E M EA and also are looking forward to growing their operational network as they move forward. Ethiopian Airlines anticipates more growth within the freighter fleet and both the narrow and wide body aircraft as well. What I also love was that the passenger freighter aircraft, something Jeff will get a kick out of will cease to serve the European markets by the end of July. Ethiopian Airlines intends to continue operating their passenger freighters well until the next year before they cease operations with them entirely. On another note, the increase in fuel prices were discussed and the general consensus amongst operators lessors and manufacturers is that the price per barrel will not decrease to pandemic levels, but will continue to rise and then operators must accept that as a reality and adjust to the continued increase in fuel price. Airbus we were glad to have them were really excited to introduce the A 320 P two F aircraft and presented Astral aviation its launch customer with an official model replica. Airbus indicated that there are over 5000 a 320s in operation globally, and that those aircraft will provide provide plenty of feedstock for the P2F conversion lifecycle. So I'm really looking forward to taking all of this news and expanding on it. But from here, I'll pass it on over to Jeff, who has some exciting news for you to discuss and talk about as well. Jeff Lee Well, for me, one of the highlights was the fireside chat we had with rich greener head of cargo at AerCap. Given that they are now the largest lessor overall, they're also involved in the triple 300 er SF conversion as a co investor. And on that particular program, rich said that they've now bagged 50 aircraft in terms of orders and commitments. And I think that just speaks to how exciting the large wide body market is. As we know, we have production aircraft from both Airbus and Boeing. And of course, we have three triple seven 300 conversion programs. And the fact that they've reached the 50 aircraft milestone is is noteworthy. And given how just how many triple seven 300 ers there are out there. And I think we will see many, many more. And we already know about some of these customers that have ordered or committed to the triple seven 300 eRsf. But we will I guess we will soon find out about more of these new whether they're new customers, new operators on or existing airlines. But we look forward to seeing those. But actually this week, outside of the event, they were more triple seven news because mammoth freighters has now announced a deal with Saudia for seven triple Seven conversions with five options. And as part of that deal, they are launching a conversion site in Jeddah to carry out these conversions as well we have a seven aircraft order from Lufthansa for the new triple seven dash eight F, which is exciting. That'll take the expanded all-triple seven freighter fleet. And apart from that they've also ordered two more new triple seven that's from Boeing. And they said they'll be acquiring a triple seven F from from elsewhere. So there's a lot of movement. There's been a lot of movement this week on the large, wide body segment and particularly with triple sevens. Andrew Crider You know, they say the easiest way and the best way to adjust to jetlag in a new time zone is by not sleeping at all the first few nights and I want to thank the air cargo industry, making it very easy to accomplish that goal. It has certainly been a very, very busy week. And news I want to give everyone a quick rundown of all the news that occurred outside of EMEA first off icelease purchase their first a321 that it expects to convert with 321 precision conversions in the fourth quarter of 2023. We also saw giG group and Nigerian based logistics company created the GIG aviation with the purchase of two ATR 72 five hundreds turboprop stories which are one of my personal favorites don't stop there. A story that we hope to be following up on shortly will be ameriflight and Texas based company which will be acquiring 15 Saab 340bs from jetstream, as well as even more news out of South America. Converting to the Embraer ejet conversion program with Nordic aviation capital, entering an agreement with Embraer to become the launch customer of the manufacturers new e190 And e195F freighter conversion programs with the purchase of 10 slots. Those first deliveries are expected in 2024. And finally going all the way back around the world to Bahrain we have texel air has topped up its order of 737 800 BCFs with the two additional conversions and this is just the after texel air took redelivery of its first 737 800 BCF in December of 2021. Now texel was present at this year's EMEA. And they gave us a few notes of insight on their fleet and their fleet plans during our narrowbody planet. Like one thing that I thought was very interesting was that they've upgraded their aircraft with the Collins EPS 3600. And that's going to enhance their fleets visual system to allow them to enter into new and more challenging airfields that will give their fleet hopefully, more reliability. I think that that type of tech news is really special and insightful and it's the type of stuff that you can only get in person at cargo facts. The our next in person event will be cargo facts symposium 2022, which occurs October 19 through 21st at the Intercontinental San Diego. I hope to see everyone there to have more insights like that. And that finally, is all we have time for today. I want to give a special shout out to the team at Airbus who mentioned to me at this last year, EMEA that they listened to the podcast, so shout out to the Airbus team. I want to thank all those who are listening. Thank you for tuning in to cargo Facts Connect. For more multimedia content like this, check out cargofacts.com and 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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