Big Loads

The narrowbody cargo market hots up

When you think of freighter aircraft, your mind may well go to some of the classic aircraft still plying the skies that we don’t see carrying passengers anymore: a Boeing 747-200, perhaps, an Airbus A300, or an old tri-holer Douglas DC-10 or MD-11. 

‘The problem is that the world is running out of 757s’

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You might think of the gloriously large Boeing 747-8F, or the 777-200LR-based 777F, or the much-mooted Airbus A350F — which, incidentally, Airbus was keeping shtum about in Toulouse when Australian Aviation visited, with a perfectly down-pat answer that was, in essence, “no comment” in Airbusese. 

You might not think about the slightly less glamorous narrowbody cargo aircraft, which distribute the letters, parcels and packages of our modern globalised world from A to Zhengzhou. 

Today, most of these are venerable Boeing 757-200 aircraft, whether the 80 -200PF factory-fresh “package freighter” type, or the more numerous -200SF, or “special freighter”, converted from passenger aircraft. An honourable mention must go to the substantially smaller fleet of Boeing 737 freighters, mostly Classic-era -300 and -400 aircraft, and the even rarer Combi version. 

The problem is that the world is running out of 757s. This is not, of course, a problem unique to cargo aviation. But, as it happens, one solution seems likely to be the same: the Airbus A321. 

In this case, rather than the re-engined, brand new Airbus A321neo, A321LR or A321XLR versions of the “new engine option” generation, though, the interest is in more mature aircraft, to be refit into P2F — passenger to freighter, in Airbus parlance — versions. 

On the Boeing side, it’s the 737-800BCF (Boeing Converted Freighter) from the “next generation” fleet, with aircraft in their late teens and early 20s rife for the aviation equivalent of a university makeover. 

The world needs over 1,000 narrowbody freighters, Boeing and Airbus concur, and both of the principal airframers have programs underway to make that happen.

The needs of narrowbody and widebody cargo operations are fundamentally different

“Our global market forecast, which is our long-term forecast over 20 years, foresees the market of about 1,000 airplanes — it’s 980 airplanes based on the 2019 version,” Oliver von Tronchin, Airbus’ head of freighter marketing, tells Australian Aviation. “This is more or less aligned with all the other forecasts you will see around the industry.” 

Indeed, says Boeing’s Alvey Pratt, director of its own converted freighter programme, the US manufacturer forecasts a need for “more than 1,220” narrowbody aircraft according to its commercial market outlook forecast.

Airbus’ forecasts are on the lower side, admits von Tronchin. “You might ask the question, why are we using 1,000 airplanes and other people see 1,200, 1,300 airplanes? Our view is that this market has always been around 1,000 airplanes. And if you need more and more single aisle planes, on the freight side, at some point you will swap over to mid-size airplanes. Our forecast has three categories, the small category going up to 40-tonne airplanes, single-aisle planes, typically 737s, A321s, and 757s.” 

This is quite an increase on the current global fleet: FlightRadar24 confirmed to Australian Aviation that its flight tracking system holds some 328 active Boeing 757 freighters in its database, and “active” essentially means they are still with an airline. 

Boeing’s Pratt notes that, “in general, freighter conversions become viable approximately 15-20 years after a passenger airplane has entered into service. Delivery of the first 737-800s began in early 1998, respectively, so it is not surprising that the market is showing interest in converting them to freighters at this time. Ultimately, it is the customer who makes the evaluation of the feedstock and determines conversion candidates.” 

With a substantial amount of that “feedstock” becoming eligible for conversion, both on the Airbus A321 and Boeing 737-800 side, supply looks set to be able to match demand. 

“In general,” von Tronchin says, “the largest markets are in North America and Asia Pacific. Historically North America is the largest market for a number of airplanes required or in the installed fleet. And what we see is the single-aisle market being a pure conversion market, where there are no new airplanes, which means you are converting 15-to20-year-old airplanes, and then you’re going to retire them around 30 to 35 years.” 

“That means, over the 20-year forecast, all these airplanes need to be replaced, and with North America being the largest market today on single-aisle, all of these airplanes will be replaced over the next 20 years. So we will have a replacement market in North America,” von Tronchin outlines. 

By contrast, the Asia-Pacific region, particularly China, is a growth market rather than a replacement market, where the existing narrowbody freighter market is relatively small, but will grow with the increasing economic importance of — and freight demand from — regional centres. 

Crucially, the majority of the demand for airfreight is constrained by volume rather than by weight: these are relatively light, relatively expensive packages that tend to have a fair amount of air in them. Your annual new smartphone is one good example, and so is pretty much anything you might order from an online retailer like Amazon: mostly air. 

‘Freighter conversions become viable approximately 15-20 years after a passenger airplane has entered into service’ Alvey Pratt, Boeing

According to airfleets.net, FedEx currently has 107 Boeing 757 aircraft, UPS has 75, Chinese cargo carrier SF Airlines has 30, DHL 23, and no other operator is in double digits, although the tail on this graph is a long one. (As definitions of “active” aircraft are not necessarily the same, the exact numbers in the airfleets data do not necessarily correspond to the FlightRadar24 data.) 

“They all,” von Tronchin says, “have hub and spoke systems that are a little bit similar to passenger airlines. They use single-aisle freighters to fly into the main hubs. For FedEx that’s Memphis, for UPS that’s Louisville. These are US domestic routes, fairly short operation, typically one to two, maximum three hours, and they do two flights a day.” 

This is not entirely the case for every 757 — triangle, square or even pentagon routes are flown in some cases, as an aircraft flies from the hub to two or three airports some way away from the hub but relatively close to each other — but the model is not that of commercial passenger aviation, trying to keep these aircraft in the air for as much of the day as possible. 

“In the evening they fly to the hub and get unloaded and load up again. Then in the early morning they fly back to the outstation where they stand for the rest of the day. And that’s typically a very low utilisation,” adds von Tronchin. 

This is in contrast to the factory-produced widebody freighters that are coming to dominate the passengerless skies: the 777F and 767F in particular.

Narrowbody freighters, unlike widebodies, are best converted from older airframes

Factory-fresh widebody freighters are seen commonly at major airports. 

Indeed, they’re pretty much the only way to catch a glimpse of the once-common trijets in the world’s skies. The McDonnell Douglas MD11, its ancestor the DC-10, and the hybrid MD-10 with its retrofitted MD-11 generation flight deck, are in cargo service with FedEx, UPS and other operators. So are numerous Boeing 747 freighters, both factory-fresh and converted, as well as 767 and 777 freighter models. 

But neither Boeing nor Airbus offers a brand-new freighter version of their narrowbody families, the 737 or A320. 

The reasons why revolve around their utilisation pattern. Most wide-body freighters cross countries, oceans and continents from megahub to megahub, often utilising 24-hour airports to ensure absolute minimum downtime. 

But with most narrowbody freighters doing their work overnight, hopping between cargo distribution centres, the number of cycles — the number of times an aircraft takes off and lands, in essence — and its number of flight hours is relatively restricted. 

‘Older aircraft that are not as desirable from a passenger economics point of view, and thus have a lower capital cost, become attractive’ 

Thus, older aircraft that are not as desirable from a passenger economics point of view, and thus have a lower capital cost, become attractive. Given, equally, that their cargo service lives are likely to be low-hours and relatively low-cycle, airframes that seem unattractive to passenger airlines can look like good candidates for conversions. 

“You’re looking for airplanes from the passenger focus that have not had flying on a high cycle operation,” Airbus’ von Tronchin explains. “You’re looking for airplanes that have had a higher flight hour to flight cycle type of ratio, because this ratio will go down in your freight operation. Typically, on the passenger side, we are seeing four to six hours as our flight hour to flight cycle ratio, and you expect that to go down to two to three hours per cycle.” 

So where do these aircraft come from? Surprisingly enough, there are few trends — it’s not that aircraft from European charter carriers, which one might imagine might ordinarily have longer sectors and fewer cycles, are particularly eligible. 

The trend is, von Tronchin says, “more airline specific and depending on airline networks, so it cannot be pointed towards the charter market, or the network market or the low-cost market. You can find it anywhere, everywhere.” 

In terms of the proverbial “feedstock” for the conversion process, the industry’s position at what is essentially the inflection point between the current (neo and MAX) engine generation and the previous (ceo and NG) versions means that this is an opportune moment for P2F conversions. 

“If you look at how many A320 and A321 passenger airplanes from the “fuel” side have been produced, you’re looking at thousands of airplanes,” von Tronchin explains. “There has never been such a large choice of passenger airplanes from which you can choose for the P2F conversion.” 

On the A321P2F side, Airbus’ latest orders and deliveries spreadsheet (from January 2020 at time of writing) listed 1,754 A321ceo aircraft delivered, of which 1,725 are still in the global fleet, with a further 37 of the ceo-generation stretched aircraft still to be delivered. 

Clearly, that’s a fair proportion of what would be conceivably required even if Airbus was to soak up the entirety of the thousand-odd single-aisle freighter market, just in A321ceos alone — with over 4,000 A320ceos still in fleets, for a slightly smaller aircraft option. 

Narrowbody freighters by the numbers

 

A321 P2F 

Main deck containers: 14 of 88” x 125” 

Lower deck containers: 10 of LD3-45W 

Total containerised volume: 7,349cu ft, 208cu m 

Equals, in IATA AAY container size: 17 containers

 

757-200SF 

Main deck containers: 15 of 88” x 125” 

Lower deck containers: None; loose bulk freight only 

Total containerised volume 6,600cu ft, 187cu m 

Total volume: 8,430cu ft, 239cu m 

Equals, in IATA AAY container size: 15 containers 

 

A320P2F 

Main deck containers: 10 of 88” x 125”, 1 pallet (88” or 96” x 125”) 

Lower deck containers: 7 of LD3-45W 

Total containerised volume: 5,675cu ft, 161cu m 

Equals, in IATA AAY container size: 17 containers 

 

B737-800SF 

Main deck containers: 11 of 88” x 125”, 1 x 62”x 88” 

Lower deck containers: None; loose bulk freight only 

Total containerised volume: 4,997cu ft, 142 cu m 

Total volume: 6,540 cu ft, 185 cu m 

Equals, in IATA AAY container size: 11 containers

Converting a freighter takes at least a year 

So, you’re a freight airline, or perhaps a lessor, and you want to go about buying a fleet of planes to convert from passenger to freighter use. 

Usually, von Tronchin says, you’ll want to go for a collection of aircraft that are already in service together with an airline. “In general, you prefer a fleet because the airplanes have the same specifications. For example, a Lufthansa fleet, they all have very similar specifications. If you take airplanes, the same number of airplanes from five different fleets, you will have at least five different configurations. So this brings additional cost. From what we know from our customers in the freight market, they prefer to buy larger batches of airplanes.” 

That doesn’t mean that the odd overly loved aircraft in the batch won’t go straight off for the “passenger to beercans” treatment, though. 

“If there are airplanes that are too old in the batch or that have too many cycles or too many hours on them, they will not take them. They will just take part of the batch — or, if they buy the whole fleet because it’s a fleet agreement, then they will sell these off to part-out brokers, but they will be less likely to be converted,” von Tronchin says. 

Airplanes over 20 years old are most likely to be discounted, with the “optimised conversion window” between 15 and 20 years. So are those that have engines with a substantially greater than average amount of time on them. As a rule, says von Tronchin, something like one in three or one in four aircraft makes a good candidate for conversion. 

“You always prefer as a first goal a larger fleet, and you go and look at the specific MSNs [manufacturer serial number], and you look at the flight cycles and flight hours. But if you compare different fleets, you will also look at some more detailed technical elements like if it has a lower deck containerised system,” von Tronchin says, noting that when Airbus sells A321s the first time round “we offer the containerised cargo loading system, but we also offer some airplanes in bulk configuration.” 

You also want a really reliable plane, says Wolfgang Schmid, vice president of sales and marketing at A321P2F conversion programme leader Elbe Flugzeugwerke, or EFW. 

“A guy from DHL once told me the reliability of a freighter is much more important than a passenger aircraft. That sounds a bit crazy,” Schmid admits, but “if you have a mid-sized aircraft, let’s say you have 200, 250 passengers on board, and you have a problem with your aircraft by any reason, any technical reason why you cannot take off. That takes place every second day somewhere, and normally the airline then gives you a voucher for a nice meal or something, maybe even an overnight stay or something like that. And then the passengers are normally somehow satisfied — of course, not happy.” 

‘The reliability of a freighter is much more important than a passenger aircraft’ Wolfgang Schmid, EFW

By contrast, in the cargo world, “if you have a freighter and you have 20,000 to 25,000 customers who paid a premium for a next day delivery of a package, you cannot tell your customers that your package is not on the way,” Schmid says. Simply, “if it doesn’t fly, the whole thing doesn’t make sense anymore, because you pay for overnight — if it’s not sent overnight, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense.” 

So, you’ve found an aircraft that looks the part. Now it’s time for six months of planning, during which time EFW looks at the specific aircraft you’ve selected, how it might differ from other aircraft, any repairs or modifications that have been made to it during its service life, and adapts the standard P2F conversion kit accordingly. 

Having only completed six aircraft to date, EFW is still triangulating the figures around how much of a particular conversion is specific to the individual plane and how much is common between them all, but its previous work on freighter conversions suggested this was about a 90:10 ratio. 

Then your plane goes to EFW’s hangars for the aviation equivalent of a six-month stay in Baden-Baden to enjoy the restorative waters. 

“You remove everything,” Schmid says animatedly, and he means everything. “That means everything out of this aircraft, the fuselage, everything. That means also every cable is removed, every tube is removed, there’s everything out. It’s an empty tube. You cannot imagine how empty an aircraft can be. And then, step-by-step, we remove the whole floor structure. It will be replaced by a totally new floor structure made with brand new-milled cross beams, stronger rods, and partially also frames in the lower section, with stronger frames to hold a floor structure which holds much higher position weights than ever possible on a passenger aircraft.” 

Older freighter conversions like a Boeing 707 didn’t require this sort of reconstruction, owing to their substantially less weight-optimised construction. 

“We also have to rewire the whole aircraft, and of course we leave out all the wires you don’t need,” Schmid says. “We have to rewire the whole aircraft because all the wires are going through the floor structure, because there are holes where all the wires are let through.” 

Beyond that, a massive hole needs to be cut into the side of the forward fuselage to enable the main deck door: those cargo pallets aren’t going to go through the usual passenger one, after all. 

“In the area where you want to have this large cargo door, there’s a lot of reinforcements you need,” Schmid explains. “You have two big rings that reinforce the whole structure to hold the door in between. So you install these two big rings internally. Externally, you have two pieces of the doorframe, and then of course the door itself with the hydraulics to open the door. And you may imagine you need a very strong hydraulic to open this heavy door because you lift it upwards.” 

If a cargo loading system was installed in the belly, it will be reused. The cabin windows will be removed and replaced with aluminium plugs. The flight deck will be adapted slightly to better serve cargo operations, including with adapted flight computer software that acknowledges that the aircraft has one extra cargo door, several fewer passenger doors, and about two hundred fewer passengers on board. 

Airbus’ current offering is the A321P2F, which it’s aiming at the 757 replacement market 

Airbus’ A321P2F — and soon its smaller A320P2F — are converted by Elbe Flugzeugwerke, a Dresden-based subsidiary of Singapore-based ST Aerospace and Airbus. EFW’s history stretches back to the old German Democratic Republic days, when it was created to build Ilyushin Il-14 aircraft in the 1950s. 

“After [the] reunification of Germany,” Schmid explains to Australian Aviation, DASA [Deutsche Aerospace Aktiengesellschaft, one of the forerunners of what is now today Airbus] took over these old facilities… using this knowledge for aircraft maintenance in the beginning, and pretty soon it was becoming the panel production side for all flat panels in all Airbuses.” 

Today, EFW produces all the floor panels and doghouse panels (the trapezoidal storage unit traditionally behind the last row of seats in a cabin section, usually used for emergency equipment) for Airbus aircraft, and since 1996 Dresden has been the home for all Airbus conversion aircraft. 

“In 1999, we started with A310-300 conversions, mainly for FedEx, but also for others as well. And then one year later A300- 600, which was a very successful program as well all over the world. We converted as many aircraft [as] we could do. Unfortunately, we ran out of feedstock to produce more of these freighters, otherwise, I think we would still do it,” adds Schmid. 

Feedstock for the A321P2F conversion, of course, is likely to be substantially less difficult to come by, as is that for the A330 family that EFW also converts. 

“Then last year, we built the prototype A321 conversion, which had its test flight end of January,” Schmid says. EFW received the supplemental type certificate for the A321P2F on 20 February this year, a month after the prototype made its first flight, and the aircraft are, Schmid says, selling like hotcakes — to the extent that the A320 version of the P2F family is being pushed into the future. 

“The next, and last, member of the family will be the A320 aircraft. But we don’t have a fixed time schedule for that yet, because we are so busy with requests from customers that it is hard to find time to take care of the other programs at the moment, or of a new program. But it’s still planned to start with the A320 conversion before end of this year,” Schmid hopes. 

The key advantage to the A320 family is the fact that its lower deck is large enough to be containerised. This is beneficial for hub airlines’ mixed cargo and passenger operations in particular — the smaller LD3-45 Unit Load Device containers, IATA reference AKH, can be loaded into the cargo unit of the Airbus narrowbody. 

Boeing’s 737, by contrast, was never built to take containers under its deck, and indeed the 737-800BCF conversion does not add this provision in. As in the passenger airline operations world, Airbus is quick to emphasise this benefit. 

“What makes the A321 really strong is the volume offering,” von Tronchin says, beyond the “14 main deck positions versus 14.5 to 15 on the 757. The A321 offers a containerised lower deck, and if you talk about express airlines and express markets, they all transport their parcels and freight in containers. The A321 has a great lower deck — and it’s the only single freighter in the whole marketplace that offers a containerised lower deck.” 

Airbus estimates that the 10 lower-deck containers that an A321 P2F can hold translate to just over three main deck containers, making the containerised cargo capacity slightly larger than a 757 despite the aircraft being smaller. 

In addition, Airbus’ pilot commonality across its narrowbody and widebody aircraft can be as much of a plus for cargo airlines as it is for their passenger counterparts. In essence, pilots can be cross-qualified more quickly to fly both an A321 and A330 freighter (a process that Airbus calls Cross Crew Qualification), and indeed may be part of Mixed Fleet Flying, where a single pilot pool flies these aircraft that need separate licence endorsements. 

Boeing’s slightly older 737-800BCF is smaller, but leverages existing 737 cargo aircraft

Boeing’s offering in the passenger to freighter conversion market is the 737-800BCF, for “Boeing Converted Freighter”. Launched in 2016, the programme has received nearly 130 orders and commitments from nine customers, and is currently operating in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, information from Boeing reveals. 

“The 737-800BCF is a passenger to freighter conversion which takes a 737-800 from passenger configuration and prepares it for a mission delivering air cargo,” Boeing’s Alvey Pratt tells Australian Aviation. “The 737-800BCF carries more payload — up to 52,800 pounds (23.9 tonnes) — and has longer range — 2,000 nautical miles compared to the 737 Classic freighters.” 

The 737-800BCF comes from the 737NG generation, produced since 1996, while the Classic generation of the single-aisle twinjet first flew in 1984. 

Inside, Pratt explains, “the aircraft features 12 main deck positions — 11 ULD of 88” x 125” plus one ULD of 60.4” x 61.5” — that provide 4,993 cubic feet (141.4 cubic meters) of cargo space on the main deck. This is supplemented by two lower hold compartments, which offer 1,553 cubic feet (44 cubic meters) of additional cargo space.” 

Crucially, the BCF’s underfloor area doesn’t offer containerised cargo space: it’s bulk cargo, in other words loose packages. Fundamentally, for larger operators, that’s a less efficient way to operate. But for smaller operators, it may not be a dealbreaker, and in fact may be attractive in some cases. 

“Boeing Converted Freighters are designed by Boeing, converted by Boeing partners and supported by Boeing,” Pratt explains, noting that conversions are done by Boeing Shanghai Aviation services and STAECO [Taikoo (Shandong) Aircraft Engineering Company Limited], with a new conversion line at GAMECO [Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Company] “in response to strong market demand.” 

The entire conversion process takes Boeing some 90 days to complete — which would be roughly half the time for an A321P2F conversion — and comprises three principal processes, the company notes. 

‘The entire conversion process takes Boeing some 90 days to complete — which would be roughly half the time for an A321P2F conversion’

“First,” Pratt says, “after stripping the passenger airplane of its delivered configuration, we install a new floor structure that can withstand the weight of heavy cargo. Next, a rigid cargo barrier is erected to keep the cargo secure. Third, the skin panels from the fuselage are removed to install a new main deck cargo door before a cargo handling system is mounted to the floor.” 

If the process sounds somewhat similar in general to the A321P2F, it is: these are aircraft largely of a similar age, similar size and similar initial purpose. We’re not comparing an Ilyushin Il-76 with a Bombardier Dash-8 here, after all. 

And that’s one of the most interesting things about this cargo area of the market: in the perennial war of words about whether the Boeing 737 or the Airbus A320 families are superior, the converted narrowbody cargo mission question may be one final skirmish.