When airlines grounded passenger services as the Coronavirus spread, they removed almost 50% of the world\u2019s air freight capacity. Responding to the global need for PPE, many airlines subsequently redeployed passenger (PAX) aircraft to boost belly-hold cargo capacity, while others ripped out the passenger cabins to create \u2018Preighters\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With demand for PPE tapering off in May, air freight rates from China and other key PPE sourcing regions have been falling by as much as 50%, encouraging many carriers to withdraw from routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Against this background of softening demand and rates, key Metro partner Emirates is modifying 10 of its passenger 777-300ERs to fly cargo only, offering a capacity of 17 tonnes in the cabin and 40-50 tonnes in the belly-hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having chartered over twenty such PAX \u2018Preighters\u2019 to transport millions of much needed PPE units, Metro can testify to the effectiveness of these aircraft in securing and flying cargo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With rising fuel prices and falling air freight rates, the economics of operating passenger freighters is becoming less sustainable, leaving many to question Emirates\u2019 strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All airlines are understandably desperate to get their revenue-generating machines back into the air and some basic (actually quite complicated) calculations do prove an insight into Emirates thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pre-Covid an imaginary passenger flight from Europe to Asia would generate a profit margin of around 15%, on a fully allocated passenger and cargo basis. Taking into account costs factors including fuel, crew, airport handling, landing fees, en-route charges, maintenance, insurance, lease and overheads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Updating the same factors to reflect the market, after 90% of the world\u2019s fleet is grounded and demand for PPE goes through the roof. Redeployed PAX aircraft, flying PPE in their belly-hold covered their cost allocations and broke even, while generating valuable revenues for the airlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking out the empty passenger seats to create fully-fledged \u2018Preighter\u2019, increases cargo capacity by up to 69%, depending on the aircraft, providing the opportunity to generate a positive contribution, which could be up to 10% per round trip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emirates are not alone with carriers such as IAG offering customers whole aircraft charters, and Air France-KLM launching a partial-aircraft charter service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When airlines grounded passenger services as the Coronavirus spread, they removed almost 50% of the world\u2019s air freight capacity. Responding to the global need for PPE, many airlines subsequently redeployed passenger (PAX) aircraft to boost belly-hold cargo capacity, while others ripped out the passenger cabins to create \u2018Preighters\u2019. With demand for PPE tapering off in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n