Air Asia is interested in Airbus A321neo freighters with the objective of developing an exclusive division formed by this model. According to a Reuters report, the airline is looking at converting a portion of the 362 aircraft it has on order.
«The division, which also carries cargo in the hold of AirAsia’s passenger aircraft and has a food and parcel delivery business, is targeting $1 billion in annual revenue within three years», said Pete Chareonwongsak, CEO of Air Asia’s logistics division called Teleport.
«For many of the markets where we need to reach both in scope and capacity, it’s a great product. Will we be the launch customer? We don’t know», he added regarding the eventual converted passenger-to-freight Airbus A321neo.
«We believe that Southeast Asia, assuming we focus on this market, may be able to absorb some level of capacity» he concluded with respect to the goal of a fleet of 100 freighter aircraft by 2030.
Air Asia remains in discussions with Airbus anyway. Although the FAA certifies the U.S. version of the Airbus A321 converted to cargo, nothing has been confirmed yet for the Neo to be included in this certification.
Ultimately, everything seems to indicate that the medium-term future of cargo aircraft will come from the hand of a previous conversion. This is due to the fact that demand is not constant and even less after a pandemic.
