Given the awkward job of following Boeing’s pessimistic assessment of the regional freighter market, Steve Doughty, vice president sales and marketing for BAe Systems, chose a slightly different focus: The market “under Boeing’s radar screen,” for freighters up to 15 tonnescapacity.
The key here was not feeding but distribution, which Doughty said was a key issue in the Asian market. He pointed to the mature market of Europe, where there was a signifi cant community of small feeder freighters. This market was driven by a more diversifi ed production base and greater levels of consumerdemand.
The result was that smaller short-haul freighters accounted for over half of the freighters in service in Europe, while in Asia, which had more long-haul freighters, short-haul freighters were a muchsmaller fraction of the total.
Would a market for smaller freighters develop in Asia? Doughty reckoned that it would. “As economies in Asia grow and especially as consumer demand grows, there will be more demand for this type of aircraft, something which has already been recognised by the integrators,” hesaid.
However, there was a problem. Sixty per cent of the small freighters globally were turboprops, with a capacity of 8-9 tonnes at most. Many of these were old aircraft – 60 per cent were more than 25-years old, and 12 per cent more than40-years old.
“Yet in Asia there is no history of acquiring used aircraft, which is how regional freighters have developed elsewhere,” he pointed out. “In some markets, regulatory barriers do not even allow the import of planes more than25-years old.”
There were also questions over airport capacity, and the fact that regional routes were longer than regional routes in Europe. “So perhaps for all these reasons, the turboprop will not fi nd favour,”Doughty suggested.
An answer to all this was the BAe 146QT – a jet freighter with 10 to 12 tonne capacity and a range of over 1,000 nautical miles, for which BAe Systems had just launched a conversionprogramme.
The fi rst aircraft was due to be delivered next year. This aircraft not only suited the longer ranges of the Asian market, but also fi lled the payload gap between turboprops and the Boeing 737freighter.
“Feed is an integrated part of the development of cargo networks,” Doughty concluded. “At BAe Systems, we believe it will happen in Asia, driven by consumer demand. It may take a different form from elsewhere, but our aircraft is rightsized to meet the market.”