A380 leasing specialist Amedeo believes an A380 passenger-to-freighter [PTF] conversion could be developed a decade from now, and it may use an internal lift system for loading containers to each deck rather than conventional maindeck doors.
The London-based lessor has 20 A380s on order and has also built a portfolio of in-service aircraft through sale/leaseback deals. Chief executive Mark Lapidus says Amedeo “definitely sees a possibility” for the development of a conversion programme for the superjumbo which, as a cargo aircraft, would have three decks.
“We’ve looked at putting in two cargo doors, however there are some new ideas about having internal lift systems,” he says. “If there was ever an aircraft where that could work, that would be the A380. That would be more efficient in the A380 than other systems.”
LCF Conversions, which is headed by former BAE Systems executive Cliff Duke, has proposed a freight conversion for the Airbus A340 which uses the standard belly hold freight doors and incorporates a pair of internal cargo lifts forward and aft to transfer payload between the lower and main decks. If such a modification was adopted for the A380, it would eliminate the need for bespoke ground-handling equipment to load the upper deck.
“We haven’t seriously looked at it yet because it would be in the 2025 timeframe, but we’re looking with sufficient interest at the idea to create, in its ‘third life’, a volumetric [conversion] which would be interesting to UPS and FedEx to carry large [amounts] of packages,” says Lapidus.
By “third life”, Lapidus means that he envisages when today’s A380s return off lease towards the end of this decade, they would spend a second lease term in the passenger role before becoming cargo conversion candidates around 10 years from now.
Lapidus is confident that a market for second-hand passenger A380s will emerge as the early-build aircraft return off lease: “When A380s start coming back from their initial lease periods, then the market where they could be operated [as passenger aircraft] will have grown by 50 to 100%,” he says. “The placement of A380s that will be coming back in five, seven, 10 or 12 years’ time will be very liquid and very attractive.”
Airbus originally offered a conventional new-build A380-800 Freighter for which it secured launch orders from FedEx, UPS Emirates and ILFC for 27 aircraft. However, after running into production problems during the mid-2000s, Airbus abandoned the A380F to concentrate its resources on resolving the issues with the passenger model.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
