With e-commerce growth surging, demand for widebody freighters remains strong as retailers seek faster and more efficient global shipping.
These aircraft, capable of carrying larger payloads over longer distances, are becoming essential in meeting the increasing logistics demands of the digital marketplace.
According to aircargonews.net, this is the verdict of Boeing’s regional director marker analysis Aaron Tayler, who said that bigger freighters are now needed due to two key market developments.
“The nature of e-commerce is shifting and that’s going to change the type of aircraft needed to service this market, compared to what we have seen historically,” Tayler said during a panel session at Air Cargo Africa in Nairobi yesterday.
“In particular over the last two years there have been two key developments in e-commerce.
“The first is the emergence of a direct-to-consumer model. This a just-in-time inventory model as opposed to just-in-time delivery.
“What that means is that a product is being shipped to a consumer around the world directly from the factory in Asia or a warehouse in East Asia. So longer distance, higher payload (aircraft are) needed.”
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Tayler stated shipping e-commerce by ocean and putting it into a regional warehouse for onwards delivery isn’t an option as the products won’t be received by consumers quickly enough.
The second key e-commerce development is the “densification of e-commerce”, he said.
“Traditionally, there’s a notion that e-commerce is packaged cargo, maybe six or seven pounds a cu ft. We’ve seen increased densification of palletised e-commerce up to 10 pounds per cu ft,” he explained
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“We’ve talked to some of the new e-commerce companies. It’s one of their priorities to densify their shipments and make the most out of the capacity that they’re paying for.
“That means there’s an increasing need for large widebody aircraft. To serve the e-commerce market you need long range, high density in a way that you didn’t need before.”
He added that the 777 freighter and the new 777-8F are well placed to serve this market.
However, on the subject of regional e-commerce in Africa, he said medium widebody and narrowbody aircraft such as the 767F and 737F still have value.
Boeing’s World Air Cargo Forecast predicts that African air cargo volumes will double over the next 20 years, driven by factors including economic growth, policy reform, liberalisation of traffic rights and trade.
In contrast to e-commerce developments elsewhere in the world and speculation that e-commerce is in danger of reaching saturation point, Tayler stressed that in Africa e-commerce is a “vast underserved market right now”.
He said: “Africa accounts for 18% of the world’s population but last year just one half of a percent of total global e-commerce revenues.
“And so there’s vast potential to grow that market, to serve that market and that’s going to go a long way to generate demand for air cargo at least on one of those key trade lanes from east Asia.”
Grant Kemp, regional general manager Central (Africa, UAE, GCC. CIS & Levant) at Etihad Cargo, also suggested during the panel session that e-commerce could help balance the airline’s African inbound-outbound volumes.
Speaking about Etihad’s strategy of slowly expanding in Africa, he said “there is a need for e-commerce into Africa”.
He elaborated: “There’s a need for inbound obviously because we’re not a manufacturing nation. We need (e-commerce) from the Far East.”
