14 x B777F's.....

[cxslave]

14 x B777 freighters now confirmed as ordered????
Any takers?

[swh]

My crystal ball suggests an announcement in the 4th week of June. That could just be the one for the GMA being replaced, not the one you were after.

[geh065]

777 freighters would not surprise me but 14 of them would. If the 777F is true then maybe 5-6 of them and more ERs?

[FR8R H8R]

Hong Kong Airlines...

[Busbert]

B777F is probably a good aircraft. AFR has not crashed one. Yet.

[G_Orwell]

Today I've heard that there is an order of 5 777F, from Lufthansa Cargo.
Where did you get your info?

[swh]

Originally Posted by Busbert

B777F is probably a good aircraft. AFR has not crashed one. Yet.

Air France has already sold a couple of its 777 freighters to Fedex as they had problems with the pallets needing to be repacked when interlining with their 747 freighters.

As the 777 freighter and 747 freighter have different hold dimensions, contour pallets that were packed for the 747 would not fit inside the 777 freighter.

[geh065]

Code:

Air France has already sold a couple of its 777 freighters to Fedex as they had problems with the pallets needing to be repacked when interlining with their 747 freighters.

As the 777 freighter and 747 freighter have different hold dimensions, contour pallets that were packed for the 747 would not fit inside the 777 freighter.

A major part of Air France selling 777Fs was simply because they were not needed. Air France have merged with KLM who had their own freight division with 744ERFs. At a similar time, KLM bought the remaining shares of Martinair making it a wholly owned subsidiary with their 744BCFs and MD-11Fs. This of course in addition to Air France's own 777Fs, 744BCFs and 744ERFs. All this at a time when the financial crisis was hitting and Air France was taking in huge losses. A brand new 777F is an expensive machine and a considerable saving can be made by an airline cutting it from it's fleet, especially when it can fetch a premium on the second hand market. At the same time Air France sold some 744BCFs and also sold a 744ERF.

I don't doubt what you are saying about the pallets not being able to be transferred between the fleets but this may have only been a minor reason behind selling 3 of their 777Fs especially since they decided to keep two of them. They would also obviously have known about this issue when they bought the aircraft. I highly doubt they were surprised only after the aircraft was delivered! Also using the same theory, a pallet from a 744F would surely not fit into pretty much any other commercial freighter (Ignoring of course An-124s etc) but many airlines have big and small freighters harmoniously in the same fleet so I am sure we could easily make it work. The fuel savings alone would surely easily offset the additional cost of a few cargo staff in HKG to repack pallets if they transferred fleets.

[swh]

geh065,

The Air France 777 freighters were ordered 2005 after the merger with KLM in 2004.

[elgringo]

here's the facts..

Boeing Riding on Orders Galore - Zacks.com