Will the 777 kill Cargo?

[Wireless]

I think the triple is not the big exclusive threat to main deck freight. The current threats are a few:-

Over capacity of main deck freighters.

Capacity available on bellies with increasingly used cross-airline accords being used to network share.

Modal shift. As pilots we're maybe not so aware that sea freight has comparatively upped its game far ahead of air freight and is taking a large slice of the pie back for previously exclusively air freighted cargoes.

Main deck air freight needs a radical re think if it's to succeed. The e-waybill system was long overdue. I've experienced what an end point user has to go through to import flowers from Africa. An extended time clearing customs at the airport. Trucks waiting (on demorrage) 4-5 hours whilst cargo is trans shipped from pmcs to truck-able pallets. These particular flower boxes then aren't secured/stacked/ or even put on GKN standard pallets as not a service provided by air handling at that UK airport. It was an untidy and ultimately annoying process for the customer.

Compare that to containerised transport by sea. Very quick clearance system, quick trucking network. Standardised and transferable equipment usage. Short sea sea times are reducing, logistics operators are sorting their lead time and stock holding to account for sea times given the favourable system of sea freight, negating expensive air freight.

I know pharma and heavy lift machinery is still drawn to main deck. It maybe the trend currently for freight to be sent via belly capacity on the pax network but I've no experience of how convenient/inconvenient that is for users with large tonnage who are suckered by promises of a decent trucking network to make up for less than ideal off route destinations and a cheaper incentive price. A large maindeck company who can radicalise the whole thing and draw back large tonnage is needed if main deck is to not compete with belly, but carve its own new theatre of ops. A FedEx or even Ryanair of the pallet world.