This weeks Flight International (28 February) is out now with its main leader piece focusing on the Airbus freighter A330 conversions.

The apparent backpedalling by Airbus over A330 freighter conversions - after it claimed, barely three months ago, that such a scheme was "far down" its to-do list - is hardly surprising, given that the airframer's freighter strategy appears to have been directionless for the past five years.

While Airbus's success in the passenger market is beyond question, the closure of the A300 freighter line in mid-2007 effectively began the manufacturer's drift into the cargo wilderness. Integrators UPS and FedEx had kept A300 production alive, but the halving of UPS's huge backlog of 90 hastened its end as a new-build type.

It also illustrated in stark terms the maddening unpredictability of the cargo market, in which limited opportunities for new-build aircraft sales - compared with the passenger sector - already mean that a tricky path must be negotiated.

When Airbus was planning to halt A300 production it showed off the A330-200F, the long-intended replacement, and talked about offering A320 conversions and the prospects for a cargo version of the A380.

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However, initial enthusiasm for the A380F disappeared, and took the orders with it, and the A320P2F programme collapsed last year without much of an explanation - beyond opaque statements about economic considerations - as to precisely what had gone wrong. All of which left the A330-200F, whose sales have hardly been stellar, as the last freighter standing.

Despite goading from the Middle East, Airbus has been unwilling to explore the only other avenue along which it might find its way back into the freighter business: a conversion programme for the A330.

The airframer's dilemma is obvious. The new-build A330-200F is barely two years out of certification, so Airbus naturally wants to protect its investment. But there are potential customers whose interest in the A330 as a freighter does not extend to buying them off the production line. Airbus has claimed that - given the demands of the A350 and A320neo - it lacks the resources to develop a conversion. It is probably closer to the truth to suggest that Airbus has simply been lacking the will.

About-face might be a difficult direction, but it is better than none at all. Regardless of whether the uncomfortable Qatar Airways press conference in Dubai helped prompt a rethink or some other consideration spurred its decision, Airbus might just have done its freighter strategy a huge favour.

Source: Flight International

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