Podcast: Awesome Cargo enters A330P2F era

Jeff Lee
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 Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts and it’s Friday, the 6th of June. A new A330 freighter operator received its first A330-200P2F this week, becoming the eighth carrier with the shorter variant of the Airbus medium-widebody conversion. I’m talking of course about Awesome Cargo, which has been eagerly awaiting this milestone since the aircraft arrived in Germany for conversion last September. Awesome Cargo’s founder and CEO Luis Ramos shared the good news with me at the Air Cargo Europe exhibition in Munich this week.

Jeff Lee
Oh, Luis, congratulations, finally, finally, finally, you have your first ap 30 video. You’re ready to bring it back to Mexico.

Luis Ramos
Well, Jeff, you know, first of all, thank you for having me today. It’s always been a pleasure. You’ve you’ve always been very supportive of awesome cargo and in our project and dreams since day one. So I’m happy to be having this conversation with you today.

Jeff Lee
So tell us about when, first of all, when do you expect to send this plane back to Mexico?

Luis Ramos
So we’re finishing our CR acceptance today. That’s happening. In the next couple of days, the aircraft will fly to Mexico City, and after that, we’re going to paint the aircraft. That’s going to take a couple of weeks, 14 days, and then the aircraft is going straight into service as soon as we get it registered.

Jeff Lee
So what kinds of routes are you planning to deploy this freighter on?

Luis Ramos
So we’re going to continue servicing our current customers to Asia. You know, we’ve been operating with 100% on time performance out of almost 100 flights, we’ve only had one delay, and it was quite minor. So we’re very proud of that as a startup with a complicated sort of structure going into each other, we will continue to build upon the relationships that we’ve created over there, and we will, and we will, we will continue doing that. So our plan is to fly wherever customers ask us to fly. We do have signed contracts, and we will honor them.

Jeff Lee
So you’ve got a second aircraft at the EUFW site. What’s the status of that one?

Luis Ramos
It’s in the final process. So, as you know, we inducted November and December of last year. So 1252 was a first converted freighter in coming into our fleet. However, was the third aircraft that we signed. And 1218 Lima Lima. Romeo Lima is coming out in a couple weeks that one’s already incorporated into our AOC. So as soon as the conversion is done, we’ll send it for paint and it’s ready for service.

Jeff Lee
Now, what about the third?

Luis Ramos
Third one will be inducted as soon as 1218, comes out of line. So hopefully, if everything goes well, then six to seven month lead time we’re looking at January, February.

Jeff Lee
So we were talking a bit earlier about all the hurdles that you’ve encountered and overcome along the way. How good does it feel now to finally, you know, see the first, you know, finished product, and to be on the cusp of putting it into service.

Luis Ramos
Well, Jeff, I mean Latin American people, and especially Mexican people. We, we’re very resilient. Since the moment we’re born to the moment we die, we live in an eternal state of crisis, so many external forces happening all around us. And so this state of chaos, this state of crisis, creates resiliency. So our people, you know, Are not we don’t victimize situations. We just put our gloves on and we tackle the punches of life head on. So I can’t tell you what the future will bring, but I can tell you that our guard will be up, and I can’t tell you that we’re going to be enjoying every process and every step of the way.

Jeff Lee
So next year, after you take the third one, are you already, how are you thinking about potentially, you know, further developing the fleet and operations and expanding? Are you already thinking about that?

Luis Ramos
I mean, I guess we’re taking it one step at a time. Jeff, I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of ambiguity in the markets right now, with all the situations that you know better than anyone. So for now, we want to stabilize our operation. We want to maintain our own time performance, and we want to make sure that we can fulfill the current contracts. Obviously, we’re always thinking five years ahead. However, we need to make sure that the steps that we take are small, solid steps.

Jeff Lee
But you’re still very much going to concentrate your efforts on the Trans Pacific. In this market.

Luis Ramos
Yeah, we will, for the time being. You know, we still believe Asia, you know, Mexico, the US, Latin America, is where we want to operate right now. The complexities of extending routes to other places and other markets and other regions with our current setup would be a little aggressive and maybe even a little irresponsible. So we want to make sure that we do things the right way with the staff and the people and the infrastructure that we have.

Jeff Lee
What about Southeast Asia? I guess you could think about maybe extending those lights down from China down to Southeast Asia.

Luis Ramos
So, I mean, we’ve talked about this in the past, I guess, but we like to operationalize on trade, you know, with with three assets, two, now, one, 1/3, coming. We’re a very small carrier, but we have great friends and we have great partnerships, so there will be some interesting things unveiled pretty soon on how we plan to connect beyond China to Southeast Asia.

Jeff Lee
It’s interesting because you’re always planning things, and you’re always doing new things, different things, so it’s good to but we can’t wait to see this aircraft going into service, second one soon, as you say, and then next year you’ll have all three flying, that’ll be great.

Luis Ramos
Yeah, one can only hope, Jeff. But thank you. Yeah, we’re very excited. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Jeff Lee
Thank you, and congrats, again.

Luis Ramos
Thank you.

Jeff Lee
That was Luis Ramos, founder and CEO of Awesome Cargo, talking to me at Air Cargo Europe 2025 in Munich this week. And that’s all the time we have today. For more coverage of the freighter aircraft and AAM market, visit cargofacts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in, and join us again next time.