The medium to long-term market outlook for freighter aircrafts remains bullish with projections for sustained growth in air cargo traffic backed by GDP growth, rising container shipping prices, ongoing global supply chain constraints & strong growth in e-commerce globally.
Freighter Aircrafts have traditionally been the backbone of global trade and played a critical & indispensable role in the unleashing of the era of globalization in the previous century. Freighters have remained and continue to be the core pivot and backbone of the global supply chains with the criticality of their role aptly highlighted & underscored during the COVID-19 pandemic where they proved simply invaluable. The Global Freighter Aircraft market has traditionally been dominated by the duopoly of Airbus and Boeing with most of the freighters simply being derivatives of the in-production commercial aircraft programs used to ferry passengers
The Global Freighter Aircraft Market has almost been in the afterburner mode since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic which drove a manifold growth in air cargo traffic, demand and volumes with air cargo traffic growing by 7% & volumes by 18.7% for the full-year 2021 while doubling the yields relative to the pre-pandemic levels.
The global surge in e-commerce, which has doubled its share of retail sales over the past 5 years and got a further boost during the pandemic, has effectively complemented it while putting further pressures on the already constrained global supply chains with sheer volumes & forcing them to be even faster & more reliable.
The air cargo traffic & volumes, thus, have gone through the roof given its overall value proposition themed on speed & reliability with rising container shipping prices globally making air cargo an even more attractive proposition. The air cargo traffic growth is very much intact & sustained (even in the post-pandemic world) especially with global trade battling supply chain constraints & bottlenecks and desperately needing resilience, thus, creating favorable conditions for dedicated freighter aircrafts as well as P2F conversion programs for used aircrafts
The sustained growth in air cargo traffic has led to a flurry of new freighter aircrafts being launched by the industry geared towards capitalizing on the growth opportunity amid capacity shortfalls. The launch of the A350F by Airbus and 777-8F by Boeing, based on the A350 & 777X programs respectively, marks the advent of next generation, composite airframe based freighters to the market in the 21st century taking the operating economics and overall value proposition into an altogether new orbit.
The same has brought even typically medium-weight & almost ringside industry players into the fray, led by Embraer & regional turboprop aircraft manufacturers, with the Brazilian OEM launching its P2F conversion program for regional jets based on its used, in-service global E-Jets fleet as feedstock with Embraer's move perfectly filling a key void in the market between turboprop based freighters and entry-level narrow-body based freighters from Airbus & Boeing. ATR had already launched the freighter variant of its ATR 72-600 prior to pandemic in 2019 with FedEx being the launch customer while the Canadian OEM, De-Havilland, has followed suit with its Dash 8-400 program recently with the launch of freighter variants
Key Topics Covered:
Part - 1
Section - 1: Global Air Cargo Market - Introduction & Overview
Section - 2: Market Segmentation
Section - 3: Global In-Service Air Freighter Fleet
Section - 4: Global Air Cargo Market - Key Demand & Market Drivers
Section - 5: Competitive Landscape - Global Freighter Aircraft Market - Market Shares for Manufacturers - In Delivery Units & Value
Section - 6: Competitive Landscape - Global Freighter Aircraft Market - Order Intake Shares for OEMs - In Aircraft Units & Value
Part - 2
Section- 7: Business Structure & Snapshot - On the Freighter Aircraft Producers
Section - 8: Financial Performance Snapshot - Charts & Analysis for each OEM:
Section - 9 - Strategic Positioning & SWOT Analysis - For Each of the Freighter Aircraft Producers
Section - 10: Overall Strategy Focus
Section - 11: Key Strategies & Plans - For the Aircraft Producers - Comprehensive Analysis of Key Strategies & Plans for each Aircraft Manufacturer
Part - 3
Section - 12: Global Air Cargo Market - Force Field Analysis - Analysis of Driving & Restraining Forces and their Overall Dynamics