Dutch leasing company AerCap has signed up as the launch customer for the Airbus Freighter Conversion (AFC) A320 passenger-to-cargo modification programme. The contract for 30 A320-family conversions is valued at around $140 million, based on list prices.
AerCap is converting aircraft that it already owns, and has identified 29 from its portfolio that are at the "optimal age" of around 15 years, says the lessor's chief executive Klaus Heinemann. "These conversions are for clients yet to be identified," he adds.
The aircraft will be converted at EADS EFW's Dresden facility in Germany and the first aircraft will be delivered in 2012, with the balance to be handed over progressively in the following three years.
Heinemann says AerCap's contract provides it with a "significant degree of flexibility" to adjust the mix of conversions between A320s and larger A321s.
"There is a significant need to update the world's freighter fleet to make it more efficient," says Heinemann. "This programme is perfectly timed to address the issue."
He adds that he expects the launch of the A320 conversion programme to extend the useful life of a typical A320 by around a decade.
AFC - a joint venture between EADS EFW, Airbus, and Russia's UAC and Irkut - expects to open a second conversion line at Zhukovsky near Moscow "one to two years" after the prototype A320 is modified at Dresden, says UAC president Alexey Fedorov.
AFC president Lars Becker predicts demand for around 400 Airbus single-aisle aircraft conversions between 2012 and 2026, reaching a peak rate of 30 a year across the two modification lines.
Source: Flight International
