Breaking news: IFL Group launches CRJ P-to-F

News broke just minutes ago that Bombardier had secured a launch customer for the CRJ200 passenger-to-freighter program it launched a year ago in partnership with Aeronautical Engineers, Inc. We will examine the program, and the launch order, in detail next week, but in the interest of getting the news out to the Cargo Facts community right away, we offer the following, from the Bombardier press release:

Bombardier Commercial Aircraft announced today that an entity owned by‎ the IFL Group of Waterford, Michigan has signed a firm purchase agreement to acquire the first CRJ200 SF (Special Freighter) aircraft. The aircraft will join IFL Group’s fleet flying air freight throughout North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

The aircraft will be converted to all-cargo configuration by Aeronautical Engineers, Inc, a Bombardier-licensed Third Party Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) Provider for passenger-to-freighter conversions for and CRJ100 and CRJ200 aircraft.

The freighters include a large cargo door and are marketed by AEI as CRJ100 and  CRJ200 Special Freighter (SF) aircraft.