EK Cargo at DWC. What is going on?
 

Every time I land at DWC there are at least a dozen of EK 777F's parked on the apron. No movement around them, doors are closed, nav lights off. Nothing happens. Seems like a huge waste of capital to me.

How come? No one to fly them? The worldwide demand for freighters is pretty good these days. All the carriers you can think of are flying out of HKG at MAX payload...

Well, it can't be a dozen as EKs total freighter fleet numbers ten- have another look and you'll probably find they aren't "F"s.

Actually, there are thirteen 777F's in the fleet. But yes, the aircraft referred to above are most likely from the passenger fleet. There were 13 of them parked up last time I was there two weeks ago. Either way it's hardly a good thing!

Every single Freighter has been flying over the holidays. Cargo is very busy at the moment.

Not sure where this rumor is coming from, possibly that the unmentionable has been chatting about off loading their op - 5 777F, to SkyCargo & getting rid of their 330Fs
(From a colleague in Sky-cargo)

EK is the second busiest cargo operator in the world

1.UPS
2. EK
3. FDX

A6-EFD through A6-EFO & A6-EFS - all trackabke on FlightRadar - active & many in the air now.

Assumption is the mother of all :mad:
Will have another look then. My bad!

FedEx fleet is more than 600 ac ... Ek second biggest freight operator ?
Not sure about that one .

Have you ever heard of "belly cargo"?

MS

To be fair he did say "busiest" and not "biggest". The aircraft don't seem to spend too much time on the ground

Guys, complete nonsense. The B777F fleet is flying non-stop.
No B777F parked anywhere.

Yes there are a few B777-300RR/ER parked at DWC. Perhaps that's what was spotted.

The 13 aircraft parked in dwc are passenger aircraft NOT freighters.

Earlier post:

13 777s parked in dwc
From the EK side :
13 777s are parked in DWC on a 3 month cycle.
At the end of each aircraft's individual stay it is returned to service and replaced with a fresh aircraft for its 3 month stay.

The 13 count reduced to 11 over the Christmas travel season which I read as saying that these aircraft will not be needed soon if ever again.

It’s hilarious reading all the posts regarding EK going to stop freighter ops. They created a dedicated fleet specifically for this reason. Sky Cargo makes more money than the new First Class will ever bring them.

And yes they are the 2nd biggest in terms of freight flown (tonnes)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_airline

Jack, apologies - I stand corrected - as 72L pointed out - it’s FDX, EK then UPS, not the other way round.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_airline

But agree with 72L - no way we’re dropping cargo.