Farnborough 2018: widebody freighters, narrowbody pax

As has been the trend since last year’s Paris Air Show, headliner orders for large widebody passenger aircraft were once again absent. Deals involving narrowbody passenger jets and widebody freighters meanwhile, dominated the show. Also popular this year, were more opaque deals from unidentified customers. Orders for 325 aircraft were placed by unidentified carriers and […]

• Charles Kauffman
• July 25, 2018

Airbus forecasts freighter fleet growth of 65% through 2037

In its most recent Global Market Forecast, Airbus shared expectations that the global freighter fleet will grow by 1,072 aircraft to total 2,722 in-service freighters, for an increase of 65.0%, during the next twenty years. This year’s forecast is even more optimistic than last year’s, when Airbus forecasted 49.7% growth to a fleet of 2,410 […]

• Caryn Livingston
• July 9, 2018

Alaska Air Cargo’s three 737-700Fs flying high, considers adding more

Better late than never, Alaska Air Cargo took re-delivery of its first Bedek-converted 737-700BDSF about two years later than originally expected in September 2017. The first -700F entered commercial service on 27 September 2017, and as of March 2018, the Seattle-based carrier was operating all three -700BDSFs it had on order with Bedek. Looking ahead, […]

• Charles Kauffman
• June 1, 2018

Overheard at Cargo Facts Asia Part II: Carriers tell OEMs ‘Focus on Freighters’

    SHANGHAI – Yesterday, we started our two-part coverage of our annual “Overheard at Cargo Facts Asia” review. You can revisit that story here. Today, in part II we shift away from the air cargo market for a look at developments related to freighter aircraft: Carriers lobby OEMs to focus on freighters. The future supply […]

• Charles Kauffman
• May 8, 2018

Forecasting Medium-Widebody Supply and Demand

Last week, Cargo Facts Consulting published the latest edition of our 20-Year Freighter Forecast, covering  the years 2018-2037. We thought it would be interesting to look beyond the forecast of freighter aircraft demand and briefly examine the supply. So, let’s do a brief analysis of the near-term outlook for medium widebodies, one of the most […]

• Alan Hedge
• May 4, 2018

When business becomes too good

This week, UPS took delivery of a 747-8F from Boeing. This is the fifth 747-8F Boeing has delivered to UPS in just over six months, considerably boosting the company’s intercontinental capacity. And with twenty-three more of the jumbo freighters on order, all of which will be delivered in the next four years, it looks like […]

• David Harris
• April 6, 2018

The next big freighter?

What are the widebody freighter options going to be five years from now? As things stand today, those options look to be diminishing rapidly. There are currently four active production freighter programs: Airbus offers the A330-200F, while Boeing offers the 767-300F, 777F and 747-8F. But not only is the clock ticking on all four of […]

• David Harris
• March 22, 2018

The distribution of widebody freighters — Part II

Yesterday we began an analysis of the way the 1,035 widebody freighters in service as of 31 January are operated and how the different types of widebody freighters are distributed within the fleet by type. You can read Part I here, and today we conclude with an examination of the distribution by manufacturer, by operator type, […]

• David Harris
• March 6, 2018