Jeff LeeHello and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect, the podcast of cargo facts, the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I’m Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts and it’s Friday, the sixteenth of August. The turboprop freighter segment could soon see a bit more diversification, with De Havilland Aircraft of Canada looking to enter the market with not one, not two, but three different conversion products. The company announced these at the Farnborough International Airshow two years ago, but last month, at this year’s show, I got an update on where things stand from Vice President of Sales and Marketing Ryan DeBrusk.
Jeff LeeSo De Havilland actually announced the three cargo conversion programs at this show two years ago, and so why don’t you start by giving us the latest status and of each of these three programs.
Ryan DeBruskYeah, thanks for that. So de Havilland did announce the entry into the cargo program for the dash eight, 400 a couple of years ago. We’ve since then, of course, during covid, we stepped back a little bit to reassess the program, reassess each of the various offerings and the capabilities of those of those products. And at the end of the year 2023 we relaunched, I’ll call it, effectively relaunch the whole program with a focus on first being the Quick Change cargo conversion, which allows an airline to take a passenger airplane and convert in a four or five hours into a passenger configuration for bulk cargo netting throughout the cabin, class installing a Class E system, and we just certified that with Transport Canada a few weeks ago, so we’re now delivering those kits to our launch customers. For that program, we see a significant amount of demand for the quick change cargo on the dodgy 400 so that is now launched, certified and getting into market as we speak. The next product that we’ve launched is the package freighter. So this is your traditional package freighter, cargo aircraft, bulk, bulk loading, a tube conversion. You still get to retain the lavatory on board the dash eight 400 unlike its nearest competitor, but it’s a full conversion of the tube, something that we can do in our facility in Calgary, or can be done by the operator, if they have the capacity or capabilities to do that. And so that program is now in the final engineering phase, and we’ll bring that to market in the first half of 2025 the second or the third product is the large cargo door, so containerized freight product, and this is where we took a serious look at the configuration of the aircraft and what we were going to bring to the market in terms of the capacity of the aircraft. So when we first launched it a couple of years ago, as you mentioned, we had a product that could take up to eight LD three containers on board the aircraft and then have room for bulk freight at the back of the aircraft. What we’ve done is reassessed and now offering or offering customers, you can have that eight LD three with bulk load, or we can improve that to nine containers on board the dash, eight, 400 with a simple modification, deactivate the aft cargo door and and you get the ninth container. So that’s two additional containers that are nearest competitor and, and obviously on an aircraft that has increased range and increased speed overall increased capability. So we feel it’s a compelling product, and we’re excited to introduce that at the back of 2025 with our launch customers.
Jeff LeeSo are you already also in the engineering phase?
Ryan DeBruskAbsolutely. Yeah, the package freighter really is a prerequisite for the large cargo door, and we’re already in the post engineering phase and getting ready for testing in a test rig that’s currently located in Toronto, Canada, on the large cargo door installation itself.
Jeff LeeOkay, okay, and is that also obviously going to be done at your own facility. But are you also offering the option for customers to do the whole process
Ryan DeBruskIf they have the capability to do that? That’s a much more complex modification, as you can imagine when you’re putting in a cargo door. What we will be offering is to do the modification at our facility in Calgary, De Havilland facility, also one of our launch customers, Ethiopian Airlines, will be offering the capability to do that and modification for customers at their MRO and Addis Ababa as well.
Jeff LeeBut the prototype that the first unit will be that’ll be done at your facility.
Ryan DeBruskAbsolutely, oh yes, of course, yeah.
Jeff LeeInteresting. So how have you you were talking about how you took a look at the overall market and what you needed to do to improve these or change these programs. How? How have you seen the the regional freighter segment change in terms of the demand and and the dynamics the different various players in this space? Have you seen that change in the past year or so?
Ryan DeBruskI think what you know, we’ve certainly been watching it, and we made decisions to go ahead with these programs based on what we feel the market potential is. And we feel that there’s significant market potential in the regional space to connect tier two and tier three cities into main hubs, main distribution hubs for cargo carriers. We feel that the 400 is the right product with its speed and range capabilities and field performance capabilities to allow carriers, whether it be traditional cargo carriers or non traditional, to get into markets that they really economically could not do so today and and introduce new services, whether it be for E commerce, traditional freight, cargo, manufacturing, cargo, what have you. The 400 offers a significant amount of capacity and a product that can do it very effectively, very efficiently.
Jeff LeeRight. And in fact, some of the customers you’ve you’ve been seeing lately have been, whether it’s for the large cargo door, for the Quick Change, yeah, have been some of these non traditional cargo carriers that you were talking about. Some of them haven’t have never had freighters before, in fact.
Ryan DeBruskThat’s true. We, one of our customers is in Peru atsa for the large cargo door. And we’re really excited to introduce the first aircraft with them. They fly dash eight, 400 today, and we’re and they’re eager to take delivery of that first aircraft. Of course, of course, Ethiopian Airlines will take large cargo door freighters as well. And, you know, I think that will be a game changer in terms of regional freight into remote, more remote, and tier two and tier three destinations in Africa, and the 400 is a perfect product to do that on the continent.
Jeff LeeSo you were saying that the quick change in particular has you’ve seen a lot of interest in that. Obviously. How do you assess the positioning of each of these types in the market, and which one do you expect to get the most, or to get the most orders? Is that the quick change?
Ryan DeBruskNo, not necessarily. I mean, the Quick Change is, this is the first one that we’re bringing to market. And so it it is for for an operator that wishes to have the capability to do both passenger operations and also freight operations, perhaps overnight, but have passenger during the day or vice versa. However, whatever their business model is, and so the Quick Change is a very versatile product, and we’re seeing operators really grasp onto that. Some of those operators will ultimately move into a package freighter product. But they need that lift. They need that product today, on the Quick Change solution between the package freighter and large cargo door, I think it really comes down to, are you carrying containerized cargo or not, and if you’re carrying just bulk loading freight, then, of course, the package freighter version of the 400 with its large cargo door already existing at the back of the airplane, plus the Multiple entries throughout the cabin, offers a very efficient aircraft to do that with.
Jeff LeeAnd the in the wide body and narrow body segments, jet segments, we’ve seen because of how strong the passenger market has been, we’ve seen aircraft that were originally allocated for free to conversion being held back and being kept in passenger service. To what extent is that also the case in the turboprop segment?
Ryan DeBruskSo the supply for freighter conversions is not as not very big today, because because of how robust the market is for those aircraft and the shortage of new aircraft in the market. Yeah, I think that that is something that definitely could be the case near term. On the on the turboprop side, we’ve seen a significant resurgence in activity for used, dash eight, 400 we’re very active in that space. We had some announcements this week here at the air show about that. That. So without a doubt, the supply of aircraft is down from where it was that said, I think there, there will be aircraft on a steady state over the coming years that are perfect for freight conversion and and so we’ll be looking to do that, take advantage of that. Look at where those aircraft are in their life, and the utility left on major components. And I have no I have no concern about a feedstock of aircraft being available. It’s just a matter of when they when they will be.
Jeff LeeAnd are you? Are you seeing more, more interest or demand from actual airline operators or from the leasing companies?
Ryan DeBruskWe’re we’re in discussions, early discussions, with leasing companies. But I think that, you know, there certainly is demand from from a number of airline customers. That’s where the bulk of our discussions are. I think the leasing companies will come along more, and some of those discussions that we’re having will solidify once they see that there, there are absolutely operators and user operators on board the program.
Jeff LeeJust as a last point, I guess the certification climate when it comes to aircraft, whether that’s jets or turboprops, yeah. How has that been affected because of what’s been going on elsewhere in the industry?
Ryan DeBruskYeah? Yeah, absolutely, the certification climate has changed dramatically. So you know, the timeline for us to certify, for instance, the Quick Change solution took longer than we expected, just because of the fact that the certification authorities are becoming much more stringent about about the process. But they’re, and understandably so. But upon is it now upon us as OEMs to really understand what those new steps are in this in the process, and plan for those early on so that they don’t impact the certification schedule. And so that’s what we’re doing on all of the programs, all the products that we’re working to certify with the authorities, is understand well, well in advance with those parties, what exactly, what’s what has changed, and what new requirements may there be through that process, so that we don’t have schedule impacts like many OEMs are seeing today.
Jeff LeeYeah, yeah. So just to recap, you’re looking at certifying both the package and the large cargo door next year.
Ryan DeBruskThroughout the course of 2025. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Jeff LeeGood luck with that and look forward to seeing more customers signing up for these.
Ryan DeBruskThanks very much. Thanks so much. Ryan, thanks for your time. Joe, thanks. Bye.
Jeff LeeGood, good. Well, good luck with that and congrats again on the A330. And let’s hope they don’t get delayed too much more. Thank you, thank you so much Diego and Danilo.
Jeff LeeThanks again to Ryan DeBrusk, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at De Havilland Aircraft of Canada. And that’s all the time we have today. For more coverage of the freighter aircraft market, visit cargo facts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in, and join us again next time.
