Airbus’ Crawford Hamilton talking widebody freighters at Cargo Facts Symposium 2023

Airbus Head of Freighter Marketing Crawford Hamilton will join a panel on widebody freighters at Cargo Facts Symposium 2023.

The 29th Cargo Facts Symposium will take place Oct. 25-27 at the Omni Hotel in San Diego, where industry leaders will gather to share insights and analyses on developing market trends while providing an outlook on the air cargo industry in the Americas and around the world.

While Airbus works to deliver its first A350Fs in 2026, the manufacturer’s medium-widebody conversions continue to gain traction, with Australia-based Qantas recently taking redelivery of its first of two A330-200P2Fs.

So far this year, Airbus has secured a firm order for four A350Fs from an undisclosed customer.

“You want to design the aircraft that the customer wants,” Hamilton said at Cargo Facts Asia in April. “When we start to look at what we’ve done over the years — and this started back in 2015 — we’ve had well over 100 sessions with customers, and probably 90% of the suggestions have actually gone on the aircraft.”

Hamilton, who was appointed head of freighter marketing in 2020, took his first job in aviation at Dan-Air before joining Airbus in 1995 and playing a role in the first aircraft sale to British Airways. He worked in Airbus marketing at the company’s office in Australia before returning to the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France, to help develop the A330-200F and A330neo market.

Hamilton joins the panel “Spoiled for choice: The intense widebody competition” on Friday, Oct. 27, at 10:45 a.m. PDT (GMT -5). The discussion will focus on conversion and production of widebody freighters, as well as the trends and demand that affect the growth of the freighter types.

Other panelists include Baldvin Hermannsson, chief executive of Air Atlanta Icelandic; Brian Hermesmeyer, senior director of product marketing and freighter customer leader at Boeing Commercial Airplanes; and Rafi Matalon, vice president and general manager of marketing at IAI Aviation Group.

View the full event agenda here.

There is just over a week to go until Cargo Facts Symposium, taking place Oct. 25-27 at the Omni San Diego. Learn more about the essential event for stakeholders in the freighter and air cargo industry, and register today.