Alaska Airways worker Jeff Ferguson so much shipment at Ted Stevens Anchorage World Airport in Anchorage, Alaska.
Mark Thiessen | AP
Alaska Airways is popping two of its midlife Boeing 737-800s into shipment planes, a raffle that the pandemic growth in air freight will proceed to generate earnings even after extra passengers go back to trip.
The Seattle-based airline, the rustic’s fifth-largest, already has 3 smaller Boeing 737-700s devoted only to air freight. It is a small quantity for a provider whose mainline fleet stood at 217 planes on the finish of 2021, however the pandemic has made shipment extra vital to airways.
Covid compelled passenger carriers to chop flights, lowering stomach area in planes world wide that may most often lift the whole lot from are living animals, programs, produce and prescription drugs. That drove up call for — and costs — for air shipment.
Alaska has put out a request for proposals to transform the 2 planes to air shipment and hasn’t but settled on a provider. The rise in its shipment fleet may lengthen past the 2 planes, however it hasn’t but dedicated to including extra.
“I do not believe the magic quantity is 2,” Adam Drouhard, the airline’s managing director of shipment, instructed CNBC.
The brand new planes can be devoted to serving locations within the state of Alaska.
Corporations together with Boeing had been including capability to transform extra passenger jets to shipment planes to capitalize at the development.
Shipment analyst Stephen Fortune mentioned the conversion of a passenger jet right into a freighter, which includes ripping out passenger seats and overhead boxes, reinforcing the aircraft’s flooring, and chopping a shipment door for more uncomplicated loading, can value round $5 million.
Alaska debuted transformed 737-700s in 2017, however Drouhard mentioned he expects that increasing past the 2 planes can be more uncomplicated than the conversions of 5 years in the past as a result of it isn’t an altogether new program: 737-800 conversion traces are already to be had.
“It is not going to be as giant of a ramp up with one each 8 to ten years,” he mentioned.
In 2021, 101 passenger planes have been transformed to freighters, up from 59 in 2019 and 71 in 2020, in keeping with IBA Perception.
Maximum different U.S. passenger airways do not perform standalone freighter plane however have benefited from the upward thrust in shipment call for all through the pandemic. Some carriers flew passenger planes with empty seats and entire shipment bellies when call for for trip plummeted in 2020.
Shipment earnings for United Airways, which does probably the most long-haul world flying of the U.S. carriers, introduced in $2.35 billion ultimate yr, up greater than 42% from 2020 and double 2019, earlier than Covid hit. Air freight made up virtually 10% of its gross sales ultimate yr, in comparison with 3% earlier than Covid.
Low cost and leisure-focused airline Solar Nation began flying shipment for Amazon in 2020 on freighters for the e-commerce massive’s air unit, a plan it drew up in 2019 however accelerated all through the pandemic.
