A330 conversions P2F

With Airbus not moving on an A330 passenger-to-freighter conversion program, Singapore Technologies Aerospace (ST Aero), a long-time Boeing aircraft conversion specialist, may launch the program.

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker, who is frustrated with Airbus for not offering an A330 conversion, has signaled that ST Aero is looking at the option. The absence of such an offering is driving Qatar to opt for Boeing 767 converted freighters and shed the passenger A330s it wanted to convert.

ST Aero is coy about its own plans, noting only that “we are exploring some new PTF [passenger-to-freighter] capabilities, but as it is still at its infancy stage of explorations, we will only be able to share plans when it becomes firmed.”

The official points out that ST Aerospace “has strong in-house engineering design and development capabilities, and possibilities are wide-ranging. We have developed our own FAA-approved 757-200SF STC and embarked on the passenger-to-passenger/cargo (combi) program for Guggenheim Aviation Partners this year, with plans to obtain FAA and European Aviation Safety Agency approved [supplemental type certificates] by end of this year.”

The 757 conversion program STC is based on data licensed from Boeing. Conversions are done in Singapore and at ST Aero’s facility in Mobile, Ala.

ST Aero, which has been converting aircraft for years, claims to have converted more than 130 aircraft, including Boeing 727s, 747s, 757s, 767s, DC-10s and MD-11s.

Airbus itself may consider a joint-venture offering, but the company’s chief operating officer for customers, John Leahy, notes that engineering resources are stretched over a variety of programs and that the conversion is therefore not currently a priority.

Paul a écrit:Bonjour,

Vous êtes très optimiste. Si l'A330 va encore très bien, c'est justement grâce aux déboires du 787. Maintenent que le pire semble derrière eux (le 787), le 787-9 et l'A350 qui arriveront en 2014, je crois que les commandes iront en diminuant pour l'A330 et ce dès maintenant. Et la descente pourrait se faire beaucoup plus rapidement qu'on le pense si Boeing réussi à passer à 10 appareils par mois dans les délais prévus pour le 787.

Vers 2015-2016, il n'y aura plus beaucoup d'A330 passagers qui sortiront des chaines d'assemblages, que des cargos et des MRTT ou presque, comme celles de l'A300 et du 767. Si le marché cargo reprend de la vigueur d'ici là, Airbus sera bien placé pour offrir un produit de qualité, disponible et fiable.

À moins d'un A330neo mais je n'y crois pas.

FedEx signs on for 27 767-300Fs

FedEx plans to add 27 Boeing 767-300F freighters to its fleet beginning in 2014.
The company in a statement said it signed an agreement covering the
freighters, and plans to take delivery of three aircraft in 2014
followed by six per year in fiscal 2015-2018.
FedEx's decision to
opt for the -300F follows evaluations it conducted with Boeing earlier
this year for the development of a new tanker based on the 767-400ER,
which would offer a production bridge to the US Air Force KC-46A
refuelling tanker.
"The 767s were selected as the best choice to
begin replacing FedEx Express's MD10 aircraft, some of which are more
than 40 years old," the company said. FedEx concluded the 767-300Fs will
provide similar capacity as the MD-10s, with improved reliability, an
approximate 30% increase in fuel efficiency and a 20% reduction in unit
operating costs.
At the same time FedEx revealed plans to delay
delivery of 11 777Fs. Two aircraft are being deferred from fiscal 2013,
five from fiscal 2014 and one per year in fiscal 2015-2018 in an effort
to balance air network capacity with demand. FedEx stated it is
exercising two 777F options targeted for delivery at the end of its
refined delivery cycle.
"FedEx Express took action during the
quarter to adjust its network, particularly in Asia, as recent inventory
destocking trends have impacted demand for our FedEx Express services,"
said Alan Graf, FedEx executive chief financial officer. "The deferral
of our 777 aircraft deliveries is a continuation of those efforts,
enabling us to make appropriately-timed international 777 capacity
additions over the next decade. With these actions, we expect fiscal
2013 capital expenditures to moderate to approximately $3.8 billion."

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/fedex-signs-on-for-27-767-300fs-366066/

The A330-300P2F will carry up to 60 metric tonnes over a distance of 2,200 nautical miles, or 61 tonnes to a range of 3,600 nautical miles for the higher MTOW (maximum takeoff weight) variants. The A330-200P2F has a payload capacity of up to 59 tonnes on ranges to 4,000 nautical miles.

EADS and ST Aerospace have signed an agreement formalising their launch of an Airbus A330 passenger-to-freighter conversion programme.

Under the agreement, ST Aero will pay €110.5 million ($142 million) to subscribe to new shares in EADS EFW, the Dresden-based company that is also the main EADS passenger aircraft conversion facility.

This will give the Singapore-headquartered firm a 35% stake in EADS EFW, while EADS will hold the remaining 65%. EADS has an option to buy ST Aero's stake, and this can be triggered during the engineering development phase of the programme.

As part of the agreement, the EADS EFW facility in Dresden will also become ST Aero's European maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) centre. This "fills a gap" in its global airframe MRO footprint, says ST Aero.

Airbus, ST Aerospace and EADS EFW have finalised the agreement to establish the collaboration for the launch of the A330 Passenger-to-Freighter (P2F) conversion programme. This follows the MoU announced at the Singapore Airshow in February this year setting out the project’s foundation and granting ‘Authorisation To Offer’ for the A330P2F.

ST Aerospace lead the A330P2F engineering development work in collaboration with Airbus and EADS EFW, while EADS EFW will lead the industrial phase and undertake marketing and sales activities, supported by Airbus. Most of the conversions will take place at EADS EFW facilities in Dresden, Germany, with the potential for additional capacity at ST Aerospace.

“The strong demand from airlines for a programme to convert used A330s from passenger configuration into an attractive freighter is clear,” says Tom Williams, EVP of Programmes at Airbus. “Together with ST Aerospace and our sister company EADS EFW we have the perfect partnership to bring efficiency, reliability and profitability to our operators.”

The A330P2F programme includes two versions – the A330-200P2F and the larger A330-300P2F. Of the two models, the larger A330-300P2F will be particularly suitable for integrators and express carriers thanks to its high volumetric payload capability with lower-density cargo. Meanwhile, the A330-200P2F will be optimised for higher-density freight and longer range performance. Entry-into-service of the first A330P2F is targeted for 2016.

As well as complementing the factory-built A330-200F in service today, the A330P2F freighter conversion programme will also enhance and sustain A330 Family residual values by extending the economic lives of A330 airframes.

Approximately 2,700 freighters will be required over the next 20 years, and around half of these will be in the mid-sized freighter segment, including 900 conversions. Addressing this requirement, both the A330-200P2F and the A330-300P2F facilitate the change to environmentally-friendly, new-technology converted freighters, while recognising the operators’ focus on capital cost.

Airbus has not had the best of times with freighter programmes in the past five years. First orders for the A380 freighter melted away due to delays with the passenger version, and then last year a planned A320 passenger-to-freighter joint venture was abruptly cancelled.

The A330-200 Freighter has also had its rocky moments, with its 2007 launch just in time to catch the global economic downturn, and orders dropping from 77 at their peak to 58 today. Then there was clamour for an A330 passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversion programme to be launched, a step Airbus seemed to be reluctant to take, perhaps for fear of cannibalising production freighter sales.

This last indecision at least seems to have been resolved, with EADS EFW, Airbus's conversion arm announcing the launch of a programme in February. Engineering development - something Airbus is too over-stretched to do itself - will be performed by ST Aerospace. The first deliveries are expected by 2016.

But will the converted freighters cannibalise demand for the production freighter? Even with its reduced order book, 29 of the outstanding 47 orders for the A330-200F are destined for lessors, all of whom are doubtless hoping to place the aircraft once the global economy recovers in a year or two. Will the prospect of cheaper conversions on the horizon undermine that market, as well as further production sales?

As it is, the production freighter has arguably made a reasonable start, given the economic conditions. It won a new order of four aircraft from Avianca in September, its first Latin American customer, and as Jon Lesieur, freighter marketing manager for Airbus, points out, carriers who are already operating the A330F have also committed to further orders.

These include Etihad, the launch customer, which in January added two orders to the existing two it has in service. Turkish Airlines and MASKargo, the cargo arm of Malaysian Airlines, also boosted initial orders (MASKargo has four already in service, Turkish has two, with three to come). MNG Airlines of Turkey is about to become the latest carrier to take delivery.

Perhaps even more crucially, China - a key market that Airbus wants to conquer - is taking to the freighter. Hong Kong Airlines has three in service, leased from Aircastle, and five orders from BOC are destined for Yangtze River Express, with the first to be delivered later this year.

Even the fall in orders since 2007 can be explained away. One early order for 12 was from the mysterious Flyington Freighters of India which never saw the light of day, and some lessors switched from freighter to passenger orders simply because of unexpectedly strong demand on that side.

"There is good demand for passenger A330s at the moment, and we happened to close some campaigns there," says Volker Fabian, Intrepid's chief commercial officer, at Intrepid, which changed five of its 20 orders to passenger last year. "But the freighters are a great medium- to long-term asset, and I continue to be very positive about them."

This still leaves 29 lessor orders (15 for Intrepid, eight for Oak Hill Capital/Avion and six for MatlinPatterson) for which there are no announced customers as yet, and into this mix the A330 conversion programme has now been added.

Details are still being worked out for this, but early P2Fs will almost certainly be A330-300s, the oldest of which is now 19 years old. This will likely have 60-61t of payload, initially - for conversions of early 209t MTOW models - with range of 2,300nm, though eventually with a range of 3,600nm once 21st-century 233t MTOW conversion candidates become available.

This compares with a payload of 65t over 4,000nm or 70t over 3,200nm for the factory-built freighter. Conversions of the A330-200, which entered service in 1998, might have a payload of 59t over 4,000nm.

In 2011 EFW executives made bullish predictions about the orders that might flow for a conversion programme, but none have yet materialised. In particular, Qatar Airways, which pushed so vocally for the P2F programme to be launched, has so far been silent. "We have no communication so far on orders, or on the type of aircraft we'll be using for conversion," said the airline when approached for this article.

Not surprisingly, John Howey, director of sales for EFW EADS says it is in dialogue with Qatar and other potential customers: "That being said, there are a lot of details to be discussed until we have a product that satisfies Qatar's needs."

Another unspoken potential customer for the conversion was surely FedEx, which has 76 MD-10Fs for which the A330-300P2F might seem the perfect replacement, as well as 71 A330-600Fs and 54 A310Fs for which the A330-300P2F would be an upgrade (28% more payload and volume than the A300-600F, and so the same cargo density). However, FedEx instead ordered 27 new 767-300ERFs in December, saying these were to replace its MD-10Fs.

This matters because Airbus pitches the -300P2F - with its extra 2,500sq ft of volume and three to four extra maindeck positions - as the ideal package freighter. By contrast it sees the factory-built -200F, with its greater range and density, as appealing to general cargo operators.


Howey points out that FedEx was a big customer for A300 and A310 conversions in the past, and that it has 130 aircraft that the A330F might ultimately replace, not to mention future regional fleet growth. "It is important to remember that the A330P2F will be around for at least 20 years or so," he says. "For much of that time we'll be the only player in the medium widebody sector."

Otherwise, Howey sees demand in China, Southeast Asia, Russia and Latin America as trade within those regions develops. China is particularly exciting. "The freighter fleet in the US increased fivefold between 1980 and 2000, much of it on the back of the express operators. China is at the very beginning of that growth curve, and in the end potentially much bigger."

Question marks over the conversion programme include feedstock - at least in the shorter term until A350 deliveries start in 2014. If the A330 passenger variant remains so popular, will residual values come down enough?

There is also the question of the cost of the conversion. The A330-200 has a nose-down attitude in passenger operation that has to be corrected for freighter operation, and as a more modern aircraft than those previously converted, more precisely engineered to purpose, will need more work to design and simulate the modification. This will make it more expensive than the A300-600 conversion - but still cheaper than the production freighter, of course.

In the meantime, owners of the A330-200F seem happy, praising the aircraft's economics, its versatility on both regional routes and longer hauls - such as Istanbul to Shanghai, or Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt via Dubai - as well as its ability to operate into smaller markets for which a B747F would be too large.

Fabian at Intrepid insists that there is huge interest from other carriers, particularly in Asia. "Every airline we talk to there sees it as a fantastic aircraft for flying in the Asia-Pacific and to the Middle East, and if it was not for the global economy, I think we would already have a number of customers," he says. "These are larger carriers with widebody equipment who feel the A330 would be the perfect complement to those larger freighters."

For this reason, Fabian reckons that once the global economy recovers, the A330F will be very successful, but the question remains: successful for whom? Lessors, Airbus and EFW have all placed their bets. Can they all get the returns they are hoping for?