One of the largest passenger airlines — S7 Airlines for the first time to receive cargo planes. There are two Boeing 737-800BCF, through which the company plans to increase transportation of goods and mail by 30%. Analysts say the growth profitability of the segment of cargo pants in the coming years: after stopping the international air cargo market has lost 65-70% of freight capacity, which provided Luggage compartments of passenger aircraft.S7 Airlines signed the contract for the supply in 2020-2021 years two cargo aircraft from leasing company GECAS. We are talking about the narrow-body Boeing 737-800BCF, the capacity of which is 23.9 tons, range — to 3,7 thousand kilometers. Delivery is scheduled for November 2020 and January 2021. It was originally a passenger aircraft that were converted in the cargo version of the Boeing company.Today, the Park of S7 consists of 101 passenger aircraft: 61 Airbus A319/320, 23 Boeing 737-800 and Embraer 170 17. The company said that, despite the implications of the coronavirus, load current passenger Park: now flying with 97 aircraft.The vessel will be managed by the S7 Cargo. Now this company arranges customs clearance and transportation of commercial cargo and mail in the baggage compartments of passenger aircraft S7 Airlines.”Additional capacity will be used on routes with high demand and limited possibilities of baggage and cargo compartments of passenger aircraft. According to our estimates, the new aircraft will increase the volume of cargo and mail by 30%”,— said General Director of S7 Cargo Ilya Yaroslavtsev.According to the latest data of Federal air transport Agency, in June S7 took fourth place for cargo and mail volume of 4.5 thousand tons. The percentage of commercial load decreased by 23.4 percentage points, to 51.4%. In April-may the company was also carrying cargo in the cabin of passenger aircraft. In S7 talked about the possibility of the resumption of such transportation in the fall of 2020 depending on the market situation, including the resumption of international passenger flights. As reported by “Kommersant” of 9 June, in June, the tariffs for cargo transportation has significantly declined since March-April that reduced the attractiveness of such flights, but cargo carriers talked about the growth in demand, hoping that the increase in traffic offsets the reduction in tariffs. The current situation enables the cargo airlines to provide a fairly high load and the price level due to the absence or significant reduction of capacities on the lines of passenger carriers, said a senior expert aviation practice Bain & Company Sergei Zaitsev, therefore, the organization of freight transportation can be cost-effective in the short term. The leasing of cargo aircraft allows for more efficient and full use of his Fusil��W for freight than passenger aircraft, where it can be transported in the cabin only certain categories of goods.Head Infomost Boris Rybak says that now is a specialized cargo business is growing, and the tariffs for cargo transportation in three to four times higher than a year ago. In the coming years the situation will only improve, he expects that these aircraft will be loaded and you will be able to make a profit. This is evidenced by the fact that the idea of creating their own carrier returned “Mail of Russia” and the company “Volga-Dnepr” did not have enough aircraft, he continues.In General, converted passenger aircraft are relatively inexpensive compared to a new truck or a new passenger, leasing rates are also not very high, says Mr. Fisher. Independent retrofitting of aircraft is possible, but complicated by the need to permit the carrying out of such works not only from the aviation authorities of the country concerned, but also from the developer of the aircraft, which is interested to pick up this work themselves, he concludes.Olga Nikitina
