747-8 Freighters — where are they now?

• David Harris
• August 26, 2014
• Aircraft, Carriers, News

It has now been almost nine years since Boeing officially launched the 747-8, with Cargolux and Nippon Cargo Airlines signing on as launch customers with orders for ten and eight freighters, respectively. In a departure from the normal evolution of major aircraft programs, Boeing launched the freighter variant, the 747-8F, first, and it wasn’t until […]

Farnborough orders top $100 billion

• David Harris
• July 22, 2014
• Aircraft, Carriers, News

Lessors and carriers from around the world placed over 900 commercial aircraft orders and commitments at last week’s Farnborough Air Show, with a value (at list prices) of well over US$100 billion . This is well up from the 2012 edition of the Farnborough Show, and comes despite fears by some in the industry that backlogs […]

Air Algerie Orders Two 737-700Cs

• David Harris
• July 16, 2014
• Aircraft, Carriers

The Farnborough Air Show typically means a flurry of press releases heralding new aircraft orders – and 2014 is no exception. Air Algerie’s order for a pair of 737-700Cs, actually placed earlier this year but announced today at Farnborough, is notably unusual. Although the 737-700C has been offered for sale since the 1990s, just three […]

Recent freighter aircraft transactions

• David Harris
• July 11, 2014
• Aircraft, Carriers, Conversions

The last week has seen several freighter aircraft bought, sold, leased, or transferred; and some future transactions have been announced. LAN Cargo plans to transfer two more 767-300Fs into the fleet of Brazil-based subsidiary carrier ABSA Cargo. The first (32572) is currently in the LAN Cargo fleet, but will be re-registered as PR-ACO. The second […]

Retirement of 747-400 & MD-11 Freighters accelerates

• David Harris
• June 16, 2014
• Aircraft

For much of the last year, the topic dominating most conversations about the air freight industry is whether the rapid expansion of usable – and marginally costed – belly capacity will end civilization as we know it. An exaggeration, of course, but the swing in opinion from “the main deck/belly split is going to stay […]

The changing freighter fleet

• David Harris
• June 9, 2014
• Aircraft, Capacity & Demand, Carriers, Conversions, News

It’s been a busy month for freighter aircraft transactions. Regular visitors to this site will have seen a steady stream of reports chronicling the resurgence in demand for medium widebody freighters. Amerijet International, Cargojet, Star Air, and Uzbekistan Airways have all ordered or acquired freighter-converted 767-300s. And while there have been no recent orders for […]

ATSG sees increasing demand for medium widebodies.

• David Harris
• May 8, 2014
• Aircraft, Carriers, Strategy

ATSG reported a moderately good first quarter, but the big news was two new leasing contracts. US-based Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) reported first-quarter net income down 20.8% y-o-y to $7 million. The decline came despite a slight (0.2%) increase in net revenue from customers to $144 million, but ATSG nonetheless maintained a reasonably healthy […]

AEI launches 737-800 conversion programs

• David Harris
• April 1, 2014
• Aircraft, Conversions

HONG KONG — There was much interest in the four sessions held here today at Cargo Facts Asia, but the big news was undoubtedly the formal launch at the event of a 737-800 Passenger-to-Freighter and Passenger-to-Combi conversion program by US-based Aeronautical Engineers (AEI). We will analyze the program in detail in the upcoming issue of […]