Why Boeing Dominates the Freighter Market - By Daisy BARRO

 

Everyone in the aviation industry knows about the Boeing versus Airbus commercial airline duopoly. It is also known that Boeing is the king of freighter jets, and there are reasons for this.

According to sources, Boeing has more than 760 freighter aircraft variants ordered by customers, with 732 already delivered, and this number does not even include the several combination aircraft that the manufacturer has sold or those that have been converted from passenger to cargo aircraft by various airlines.

Juxtapose this with Airbus which has not sold a new built cargo aircraft for almost six years. Even though Airbus enjoys a certain amount of success with its few passenger-to-freighter (P2F) converted aircraft, the numbers are still insignificant compared to Boeing.

One could say that the reason for this disparity between Boeing and Airbus is the fact that from inception, Boeing had embraced freighter variants as part of its product lineup because apart from the B787 Dreamliner which Boeing has not yet offered as a cargo aircraft, the rest of Boeing’s jets are either factory-based freighters or P2F convertibles.

With such a head start in the freighter market, it is no surprise that Boeing is king in this domain.

Since most Airbus jets are not wide enough for freighter operations (with the exception of the A350), the manufacturer will need to invest in more widebody aircraft – an investment which is unlikely to be worthwhile at the moment, considering that cargo airlines already have a plethora of cheap alternatives to choose from, since many widebody aircraft went out of service during the lockdown due to COVID-19.