Chisholm Enterprises will proceed with its plans to grow its fleet of 737-800BCFs in 2025 after hitting several important milestones in 2024 with its two airlines, Bahrain-based Texel Air and New Zealand-based Texel Air Australasia.

While Texel Air Australasia obtained its AOC in 2023, Texel Air in September celebrated its 10th year of operations.

“We never set out to own an airline and we sort of got into it by default, but it’s been a fantastic journey, starting with very humble beginnings,” George Chisholm, chief executive of Chisholm Enterprises and executive director of Texel Air, says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect.”

After removing its final 737-300F, the fleet stands at ten 737NG freighters, with three -800BCFs and two -700FCs at Texel Air and five -800BCFs at Texel Air Australasia. Two or three more aircraft will join the New Zealand fleet in 2025, Chisholm tells Cargo Facts.

Texel Air Australasia in October received extended diversion time operations (EDTO) approval for up to 120 minutes, which will help the carrier grow its operations for Australia-based Team Global Express and fly certain routes more efficiently, especially between Australia and New Zealand.

“We’ve kind of had to hold back our plans going trans-Tasman until we got the EDTO approval, which we’re happy to say we have now,” Chisholm says. “And now, once we get these few more aircraft into our fleet, we will start to fly that route pretty extensively, mostly between Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Christchurch, in a variety of route configurations.”

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more on Texel Air as Chisholm speaks with Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee.

RwandAir continues to see growing demand for dedicated freighter operations after taking delivery of its first 737-800SF two years ago.

\The 2007-vintage unit 35131 (ex-TUI Airways) joined the RwandAir fleet in November 2022 on lease from Merx Aviation, marking the airline’s entry into the freighter segment.

RwandAir has used the 737-800SF on routes within Africa as well as to the Middle East to complement its belly operations.

“We’re looking at ways to accommodate the demand that has been brought by the narrowbody services and also the widebody A330 passenger flights,” Jean Bosco Gakwaya, director of cargo at RwandAir, says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect.”

The carrier launched an African cargo hub in May 2023 as part of a joint project with Qatar Airways Cargo. Given Rwanda’s landlocked nature and its location in Africa, RwandAir plans to develop its freighter operations to serve the continent and is looking at options to expand the fleet.

“The nature of the equipment that we would be bringing onboard could be an A321F or another 737-800F,” Gakwaya says. “That is something that definitely we’ll keep in our mind in the near future.”

Other African carriers have since stepped into the 737NG freighter segment, including EgyptAir, Serve Air, Kenya Airways and TAAG Angola Airlines.

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more on RwandAir as Gakwaya speaks with Cargo Facts Senior Associate Editor Robert Luke.

Crestone Air Partners plans to continue enlarging its presence in the freighter and engine markets.

The Denver-based lessor has grown its portfolio to about $500 million in assets under management since becoming an independent subsidiary of Air T in July 2022. That portfolio includes freighter and passenger aircraft and engines as well as landing gear, Crestone Chief Executive Kevin Milligan says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect.”

The lessor started its freighter activities by buying two 737 Classics in 2022, but Crestone now aims to make larger, “package type” transactions, Milligan says.

“In our earlier days, I think we were focused on smaller stuff generally just to get going and to build the track record and the portfolio,” he says. “And now we’re trying to look a little bit more toward scale and some efficiency with the platform.”

Crestone in late 2023 moved into 737NG freighters and bought three from GA Telesis with leases attached, but it still sees value in 737-400Fs.

“Granted, there are still a lot of parked aircraft and it’s going to take years for that to be reabsorbed into the system but, fundamentally, people need freighters and there’s a trend, I think, to more and more of that,” Milligan says. “So, we look for those types of value dynamics. We like the -800 still, at the right price.”

In October, Crestone added another freighter type to its portfolio by taking on the first of two A321Fs under management. That aircraft is an A321-200PCF on lease to Global Crossing Airlines.

“We’re looking for customers out in the market that might want to adopt the A321F,” Milligan says. “We think it offers a lot of capability. It hasn’t been widely adopted yet, though, and I think that’ll come in time.”

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more of Milligan’s conversation about Crestone with Cargo Facts Senior Associate Editor Robert Luke.

ATSG Chief Executive Mike Berger is looking forward to receiving the group’s first A330P2F even as demand for 767 freighters remains solid.

Over the past year, carriers in countries including Georgia and Uzbekistan have entered the medium-widebody market and grown using 767s from ATSG’s leasing arm, CAM.

“The thing that we’re very keenly aware of is how much capacity can be absorbed into this market,” Berger said in a fireside chat at Cargo Facts Symposium 2024 in San Diego last week. “And that’s something we have a very, very close eye on. And we see our competitors and some other lessors also leasing aircraft into the same markets. So, we’ll balance that out with how many more assets we think they can absorb.”

Meanwhile, ATSG sent its first A330 for conversion with EFW in late 2023 as part of its growth and transition into Airbus medium widebodies. The group expects to deliver its first two A330-300P2Fs on lease by the end of the year, with a couple more to follow in early 2025, Berger said.

“It’s our future,” he said. “Make no mistake about it.”

The group appointed Todd France as chief commercial officer in August. Most recently president of CAM, France reports to Jeff Dominick, who became ATSG president in June when Berger became CEO.

“They’re good thinkers; they’re going to challenge us, challenge me, challenge the others to evolve our business,” Berger said. “We really firmly believe that our business needs to continue to evolve. We can’t stand still. We won’t stand still, and these two guys, specifically, are new parts of the leadership that are going to help us get there.”

Tune in to this episode of “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more from Berger’s fireside chat with Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee at Cargo Facts Symposium 2024.

Prolonged strong demand from the passenger segment for narrowbody aircraft and engines is still creating a challenging freighter leasing market, especially on 737-800s, speakers on a panel agreed at Cargo Facts Symposium 2024 in San Diego last week.

The panel on freighter aircraft and engine leasing, moderated by Mylene Scholnick, senior manager and head of worldwide fleet and carriers at Amazon Global Air, discussed recent trends and developments in the segment, including market saturation and increasing costs. The panelists were:

• Dora Alexander, executive vice president of Hamden Aviation;
• Ryan Anderson, vice president of commercial in the Americas at Aero Capital Solutions;
• Maik Falkuss, director of sales in North America at MTU AENA; and
• David Ellis, SVP and global head of asset transactions at GA Telesis.

“Right now, there are probably over fifty 737 freighters for sale currently being actively marketed,” Alexander said. “So that gives a bit of a scope of what we’re talking about in terms of creating that downward pressure on lease pricing and people making different decisions on leasing out these engines.”

Some lessors have removed engines from both A321Fs and 737-800Fs immediately after conversion and leased out the engines separately for passenger use, the panel said.

“Lessors, depending on how they’re structured, have the ability to be patient,” Anderson said. “And let’s take the -800, for example. As long as lease rates are as high as they are for the [CFM56-7B], a lessor can afford to be potentially patient with that airframe in storage while those two engines are out creating value for customers and for lessor shareholders in the market.”

GA Telesis’ Ellis said that the industry has not yet seen 737NG freighters replacing 737 Classics in large numbers, while operators are deferring shop visits for their engines and turning to engine leasing instead.

“Couple that with a high volume of aircraft converted, the Classics staying in service longer — it’s sort of a perfect storm of the freighter values suffering while at the same time, engine values have gone up,” he said.

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more from the panel at Cargo Facts Symposium 2024.

Follow Cargo Facts’ coverage of Cargo Facts Symposium 2024 on our dedicated page.

TAAG Angola Airlines is keen to capitalize on the potential of the African market to grow its cargo business, having brought on an industry veteran and introduced its first 737NG freighter into operation less than a year ago.

TAAG took delivery of a 2003-vintage 737-800BCF (33552, ex-Ryanair) on lease from BBAM in September 2023, but had not yet put it into service when the carrier appointed David Ambridge as director of cargo and mail that November. Ambridge helped put the freighter to work soon after that and it now flies at least four times a week.

“That doesn’t sound a lot, but there are some obstacles that we’re overcoming,” Ambridge says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect.”

“We’ve actually created what I like to call a niche market now for this aeroplane, and that’s really where I see TAAG Cargo,” he says. “I see us being a niche carrier. We’re not Ethiopian; we don’t want to be, and we never will be.”

Ethiopian Airlines is the largest freighter operator in Africa with ten 777Fs, three 767-300BDSFs and four 737-800Fs.

While TAAG hopes to expand its own freighter fleet, it will also need to overcome hurdles, many of which relate to regulatory issues, Ambridge says.

“That’s a really big obstacle that we need to start sitting down with customs and understanding why they do it and where they feel the threats are and then seeing if they’re open to accept information electronically rather than via paper,” he says.

“Then we can give them advance manifests and an advance notice, and they can do maybe a little bit more of their risk assessment before the flight so that we can try and get stuff moved around Africa quicker.”

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more on TAAG as Ambridge speaks to Cargo Facts Senior Associate Editor Robert Luke.

Canadian regional carrier Pascan Aviation will soon become the first Saab 340B freighter operator in the country after recently entering the dedicated cargo segment.

Pascan began a fleet changeover to passenger Saab 340Bs during the pandemic and has carried cargo on its passenger flights since operations began in 1999. Only recently did it give serious consideration to the freighter market and ended up with a deal to fly a Saab 340B freighter for a customer, President and Chief Executive Julian Roberts told Cargo Facts.

Pascan leased the 1990-vintage unit 340B-219 from Jetstream Aviation Capital and has temporarily assigned Akron, Ohio-based Castle Aviation to fly the freighter on its behalf. The operation began in July.

“We’re waiting until the STC is approved here by our authorities at Transport Canada,” Roberts says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect.”

“We expect that will be done within the coming month or two when we will import the aircraft onto our certificate and start operating it as a Canadian aircraft,” he says.

Pascan says there is underserved demand in more remote regions in Canada and expects to take on a second Saab 340BF from Jetstream by early 2025.

“There’s been a lot of people knocking at the door asking about different products and how we can move it back and forth, and a lot of that is revolving around seafood right now,” Roberts says. “They feel that the aircraft — its ability, range and the amount of weight that we can fly — that seems to be a good fit for a lot of people.”

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more on Pascan as Roberts speaks to Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee.

Airship manufacturer Aeros plans to launch two multi-role airships to deliver large payloads globally while serving as aerial hubs for cargo drones.

The smaller of the two airships, the Aeroscraft ML866, can carry up to 66 tonnes of payload up to 3,100 miles, while the larger ML868 is expected to carry up to 250 tonnes over a range of 6,200 miles, Aeros Chief Executive and Chief Engineer Igor Pasternak says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect,” recorded at the 2024 FAA Drone and Advanced Air Mobility Symposium in July.

Aeros hopes to obtain FAA approval for the ML866 and ML868 in 2028 and 2034, respectively, Pasternak says.

Both hydrogen-powered airships can travel at a cruising speed of 120 mph and can hover to pick up or drop off cargo, he says.

“Imagine the airship is some kind of warehouse,” Pasternak tells “Cargo Facts Connect.” “It is certified and has a pilot. You can simply fly over downtown Los Angeles or Beverly Hills — you don’t have any restrictions.

“The drones are located in the airship, and the airship picks up the packages from a warehouse outside the city. It’s a large warehouse and in the city there’s no more land for warehousing. So, it can pick up the packages from the fulfillment center, flying fifteen to twenty miles and parking or hovering over the Pacific neighborhood — with drones just flying up and down delivering packages.”

The Aeroscraft airships will be able to move full cargo payloads with the speed of airfreight but cost less than ground delivery, Pasternak says.

Aeros began developing airships for commercial and military use in 1995 and has delivered its dirigibles to customers across the globe. The company received FAA certification for the Aeros 40B Sky Dragon airship model in 2000 and has received certifications for its airships in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear Pasternak’s conversation with Cargo Facts Senior Associate Editor Robert Luke.

De Havilland Aircraft of Canada is progressing past the engineering phase for its bulk and large-cargo-door conversions for the Dash 8-400, and plans to certify the programs in 2025.

The two new products build on De Havilland’s Dash 8-400 Quick Change conversion, for which it recently obtained Transport Canada certification.

“We feel that there’s significant market potential in the regional space to connect Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities into main distribution hubs for cargo carriers,” Vice President of Sales and Marketing Ryan DeBrusk says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect” recorded at the Farnborough International Airshow last month.

“We feel that the 400 is the right product with its speed and range capabilities and field-performance capabilities to allow carriers, whether it be traditional cargo carriers or non-traditional, to get into markets that they really economically could not do so today.”

De Havilland launched the three Dash 8-400 conversions at the Farnborough show in 2022. Since then, it has secured customers including Ethiopian Airlines, Peru-based ATSA Airlines, Kenya-based Advantage Air and United Arab Emirates-based Falcon Aviation.

“Without a doubt, the supply of aircraft is down from where it was,” DeBrusk said. “That said, I think there will be aircraft on a steady state over the coming years that are perfect for freight conversion, and so we’ll be looking to take advantage of that.”

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more on De Havilland as DeBrusk speaks with Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee.

AeroUnion in June started flying its first A330-300P2F as part of a fleet renewal and collaboration strategy between it and Avianca Cargo.

AeroUnion has based the 2006-vintage unit 791 (ex-SmartLynx) in Mexico City (NLU) for flights within Mexico and to Colombia and the United States, including some on an ACMI basis for the Colombia-based Avianca Cargo.

“We are really happy to welcome the new technology to our company because it’s a radical turnover to our numbers in terms of ability and capacity, and it’s also a big improvement in fuel consumption,” Chief Executive Danilo Correa says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect.”

“We are expecting to reduce fuel consumption by about 30%, impacting positively our environmental footprint,” he says.

After beginning operations with the A330, AeroUnion retired its final A300-600F (642) at the end of June and has two 1987-vintage 767-200BDSFs left in its fleet.

Unit 791 is the first of two A330-300P2Fs Avianca Cargo will lease from CDB Aviation. The carrier also has two A330-200P2Fs on the way and intends to place more A330s on AeroUnion’s AOC.

Avianca Cargo’s own fleet consists of six production A330-200P2Fs.

“This is a milestone for the partnership because the old fleet is not as reliable, not as efficient and not as big,” Avianca Cargo Senior Vice President Diogo Elias says. “So, we are up-gauging, we are more reliable, and we have much more capacity.”

The two carriers plan to strengthen operations throughout Latin America using their hubs at NLU, Bogota (BOG) and Miami (MIA).

“This is a running business and we, of course, will find new opportunities to take advantage of,” Correa says.

Tune in to this week’s “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear more on AeroUnion and Avianca Cargo as Correa and Elias speak with Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee.