Listen: New freighter and drone operators emerge

In this week’s episode of the “Cargo Facts Connect” podcast, Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee and Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke kick off the discussion with a watershed moment in the cargo industry: the news that Ameriflight will purchase the Sabrewing Rhaegal-A . The order marks a shift in Ameriflight’s business, expanding its capabilities to last-mile logistics.

Additionally, the drone space saw a series of milestones from medical drone operator Spright, unmanned aircraft developer Reliable Robotics and Canada-based Volatus Aerospace.

On the manned aircraft front, the team looks at Awesome Cargo, which received its first A330 for the start of operations , and Mesa Airlines, which will soon begin flying its first DHL 737-800F .

Tune in for a discussion of these topics and more for the week ended Feb. 17, 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 at cargo Facts.

Jeff Lee And I'm Jeff Lee editor of cargo facts.

Andrew Crider I've been gone for a couple of weeks and well I've been gone. Jeff and Robert have you've done truly incredible stuff. There's a lot of exclusive material that we reported on this week and I have a number of questions for you both. But before we get into that there's a lot of drone news that we simply have to cover Spright, you know them for ordering. Jeff remind me you just brought it up the Dufour drone and medical airlift company. They earned their beyond visual line of sight waiver from the FAA. This is a key step for Spright's, operations or launch give them a quick congratulations this this moves them into a very serious player category into the commercial drone space. On similar note, up in Canada, a company that we spoke to recently volatus Aerospace, they've earned a license for domestic service for all cargo aircraft from the Canadian Transport Agency. That's a huge regulatory milestone for the company, which is purchased a number of drones from to various customers. And this is something that I didn't catch when we originally covered Volatus and I want to cover them. Now, they have an order placed for the Natilus Kona. And that was, the Kona was featured in their social media posts sharing the regulatory milestone, which is truly incredible. Lastly, our friends at reliable robotics have done a truly terrific job expanding their research and development. They've opened the manufacturing plant and Research Development site. And the opening ceremony was attended by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and other top local elected officials. Reliable Robotics has entered several agreements with NASA and the FAA in order to share their data, which is I think, a milestone for the drone industry to get that type of publicity and coverage for that event. And this is all I said Lastly, but the I think what is the biggest elephant in the room would be Ameriflight. Now Ameriflight made national headlines when they ordered the Natilus Kona which will be roughly the same size of their current Saab 340s. America flight is now doubling down ordering a 35 of the saberwing rhaegal A. Now we spoke to saberwing and the Rhaegal A is capable of carrying a similar cargo to the Beechcraft 999 the 1900s and it's impressive to see a another order like this from Ameriflight one there being a regional airline that operates or charter airline excuse me that operates primarily from airports, the Rhaegal A can operate vertical takeoff and landing directly from warehouse which is a expansion of the Ameriflight business and to having two unmanned aircraft types that are capable and compare and payload to their current fleet is really monumental and shaping the future of our industry. No Ameriflight for every item of news coverage. There have been a million people in the background, who look at Ameriflight and are wondering, what is going on? Is this a watershed moment for the industry? And based on what we've heard from Ameriflight? I say yes, it is. They're serious. This is the future in the futures now. Now, there's a new cargo airline. I'd like to bring it back to your fantastic reporting. What was it? Was it cool cargo or bodacious cargo? Which one was it?

Robert Luke Astronomical cargo?

Andrew Crider No astronomical that's getting close to astral aviation, if you call an astronomical

Jeff Lee Yeah, any of those names and I think all of those are awesome. Because actually awesome Cargo is the name which we I mean, we Yeah, I think we can agree that fun names like this are always interesting and catch people's attention. But I mean behind the interesting name is also just a really interesting story because this startup based in Mexico is they just took delivery of the an A330 200. This isn't a full freighter yet they are going to start operations soon, but with mostly belly cargo and some lightweight cargo in the cabin, the cabin has been reconfigured, what we call the passenger freighter layout, which is basically removing, having the seats removed and you know, having cargo zones on the floor of the cabin. Now, the company did tell me that they do plan to eventually operate at least one or two A330 200 P two F. So the issue of course, is the fact that conversion slots are pretty hard to come by. And there's still a pretty long waitlist for the for these, despite EFW opening up more conversion lines around the world. But maybe we'll see things start to pick up this year and next year, but awesome cargo intends or plans to send this aircraft to one of these conversion lines, maybe in a few years. But it's interesting, isn't it because Mexico is already I mean, it's obviously a big cargo market. But it already is home to you know, various cargo airlines. Of course mas, which already operates two a330 300 P two F and two a330 200 P two F's, along with seven six sevens. And we know they intend to continue expanding that medium wide body feet, both airbuses and Boeings. Then we have aerounion, which, funnily enough, was founded by the father of Luis Ramos, who founded awesome cargo. So it's just basically a family of entrepreneurs in Mexico. Pretty interesting. And then we have Aeronaves TSM, which is interesting in its own right, because of all the narrowbody expansions and conversions that it's been taking on. Including flying for Mercado Libre, of course. But But yeah, coming back to an awesome cargo. This first a330 is on lease from air lease Corporation. And a second one will be joining in a few months time. Speaking of ALC it's also interesting because of course they are the first lessor customer for the A350 F. And the previously had no involvement in the freighter space. But there were hints from senior executives that it was also looking at converting some of its a 330s in its portfolio. So this might be one of those planes.

Robert Luke Jeff, I must say, you just really all you have to do after hearing jeff speak is drop the mic. He is literally a walking encyclopedia when it comes to air cargo and freight transactions. You are the King of FATS. Man you just keep it fat, just keep it fat, and thin and astronomical and just straight a game AAA cargo expert to the fullest going forward. I do want to announce two more firsts that have taken place this week. Stag which is ST Aerospace in guangzhou has officially completed its first 767 300 BCF conversion. So congratulations to that outfit over there. Just continuing to expand Boeing's productivity on its 767 300 conversion program. This aircraft will definitely keep SF Express into double digits. I believe it's the 17th or 18th 767 that they've taken now with this one completed and continue to grow and expect to exceed over 80 aircraft and their fleet by the end of this year. So that's quite an accomplishment for that airline in that outfit. You know, as I think about it, even though China is still having a slow capacity fulfillment when it comes to movement of air cargo. They are making tons when it comes to the conversion because they're from what I've heard at the conference that we were attending the CF cargo Facts EMEA 2023 People were very impressed and very well pleased with the level of work from a quality and quantity perspective that's being done at the mros over In China, so big kudos to those mros continue to do your work from HAECO or no but the ST Aerospace and STARCO can't forget you guys either. You know, the they're making their money. So just imagine what's going to happen once the lanes open up and they start moving the air cargo back on a normal basis.

Jeff Lee That's also sorry. There's also the Sichuan A330 line that we'll be opening soon. But yeah, there's a lot of expansion with the Chinese mros and conversion activity because speaking of ST in Guangzhou, this site was already a conversion center for EFW's a321 P2Fs. Right. And the other one that I wanted to say was HAECO Xiamen which does 737 800SFs for AEI, but also recently completed its first a321 PCF for precision. Of course, it also does 757 conversions for precision. So yeah, a lot of these sites are now MRO sites are now home to multiple conversion lines for different STC holders, which is pretty interesting.

Robert Luke Indeed, indeed. That's why I say whenever you finish, all you have to do is drop the mic. But what ended on this quick note here, congratulations to Mesa for taking their first 737 800 BDSF from DHL the first one to enter their fleet on a CMI operations for the express company. And as of now, they are also looking forward to getting another one to enter the fleet operations in the near future. So we look forward to seeing the modernization plus the introduction of the new cargo outfit with Mesa airlines. And I guarantee they'll continue to do some big things. And we're going to give a shout out to Embraer because unlike the rest of you all, who might have just seen the social media posts, we got the juice in the scoop on the inside of what's going to happen with that first prototype. And you only get it here at cargo Facts where we deliver the goods always first and foremost. And on that note, Andrew, take us out.

Andrew Crider Rob outstanding rundown. I couldn't have done it better myself. I'm very happy that you had mentioned Mesa. I know that's a story that we had been chasing for quite some time. With all of that. I think everyone needs time to check cargo facts.com And we'll put an end to our own smugness stop tooting our horn and head down the street. That is all the time we have for today. 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 .

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