Air Belgium in 2021

[Acid-drop]

Ah its the last 4 of qatar then
Seems the plan is quite concrete already

[sn26567]

It will be 4 A330-200 ex-Qatar

MSN1584
MSN1594
MSN1688
MSN1708

Thanks for the info. They don't need a P-to-F conversion, as they are already cargo aeroplanes. And only 5 years old!

MSN 1584 (A7-AFG): https://www.airfleets.fr/photo/Qatar-Ai ... 8_a330.htm
MSN 1594 (A7-AFH): https://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-a330-1594.htm
MSN 1688 (A7-AFI): https://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-a330-1688.htm
MSN 1708 (A7-AFJ): https://www.airfleets.fr/ficheapp/plane-a330-1708.htm

[LJ]

Any idea if air belgium made any money until now or if they are burning cash ?
Cargo is more predictable and at current rate a much more profitable business I suppose

Cargo is highly dependiing on the economic cylce (in normal times). The only reason why cargo yields are high at present is due the perfect combination of low availability of lower deck capacity (due to COVID-19) and the extreme demand for cargo as transporting by sea is problematic (due to the shortage of containers at the right place). When this is all over, it will most likely return to the situation prior COVID-19 and thus depressing cargo yields as you need to be able to competen with the ME airlines, Turkish, Etiopian and all those operators like Magna Aviation (I recall that prior to the current boom AirBridge decided to cancel its 77Fs only regretting the decsion when the market spiked).

[sn26567]

CMA CGM Air Cargo (France) enters into a CMI deal on two of the A330-200Fs operated by Air Belgium.

https://theloadstar.com/cma-cgm-brings- ... operation/

[sdbelgium]

A7-AFG (msn 1584) seems to be the first in the delivery queue and has operated two test flights in Doha on 4 and 5 Feb.

CMA CGM Air Cargo (France) enters into a CMI deal on two of the A330-200Fs operated by Air Belgium.

So the aircraft are acquired by CGM and then KF provides the maintenance, insurance and crew?

[BrightCedars]

Great news if you ask me! What is the ETOPS situation concerning KF? I guess with the hours clocked with the A340's they can now start training using the A330's with cargo, after which they could replace the A340's with A330's for passengers when things get better?

On a side note, why would QR part with these 5 relatively new and rather useful aircraft? Are they concentrating on the 777 and 747 for cargo?

[sdbelgium]

On a side note, why would QR part with these 5 relatively new and rather useful aircraft? Are they concentrating on the 777 and 747 for cargo?

They are moving towards an all-Boeing fleet for cargo, indeed.

[sn26567]

On a side note, why would QR part with these 5 relatively new and rather useful aircraft? Are they concentrating on the 777 and 747 for cargo?

Exactly: they have brand new 777Fs, which offer a lot more cargo space.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/qata ... its-fleet/

[EBAW_flyer]

A7-AFG (msn 1584) seems to be the first in the delivery queue and has operated two test flights in Doha on 4 and 5 Feb.

CMA CGM Air Cargo (France) enters into a CMI deal on two of the A330-200Fs operated by Air Belgium.

So the aircraft are acquired by CGM and then KF provides the maintenance, insurance and crew?

A7-AFI and A7-AFJ did these test flights already last week (January 27), but not visible anymore in the free (1 week history) version of flightradar24.

[longwings]

So of the four A330s that Air Belgium plans to initially add to its fleet, at least two won’t really to the extent that they will have no stake in them whatsoever, providing only crew and related services. Will they really fly out of LGG? I know Ceva can operate out of any airport, that’s kinda the point of being a freight broker, however their existing scheduled charter operations are based in AMS. Doesn’t mean the A330s have to be based there, but it is one of their two European gateways, whereas, as far as I know, they don’t have even representation in LGG, much less their own presence.

And of course now the question arises as to whether Air Belgium will operate the other two A330s under its own name (plus the two yet-to-be-identified aircraft they hope to add by the end of the year), or will it be a similar deal to CMA CGN’s?

One way or the other, this should help Air Belgium financially, but depending on the answers to these questions, it may not do much, if anything, to alleviate FedEx’s down-scaling at LGG.

[TLspotting]

OO-CMA, ex A7-AFI, the first A330-243F of Air Belgium has been registered today !

[kazansky137]

What about, if I'm well informed, of
OO-ABD at LDE and
OO-ABE at AMM ?
Cheers,
Alain.

[Atlantis]

To give a bit more info of what we could read already regarding the freighters for Air Belgium.

CGA CGM, which is a shipowner, bought 2 A330 freighters from Qatar Airways. CGA CGM wants to step in also in airfreight by creating its own cargo airline. Air Belgium wants to use 2 of those of CGA CGM. So they will not own it

[Poiu]

To give a bit more info of what we could read already regarding the freighters for Air Belgium.

CGA CGM, which is a shipowner, bought 2 A330 freighters from Qatar Airways. CGA CGM wants to step in also in airfreight by creating its own cargo airline. Air Belgium wants to use 2 of those of CGA CGM. So they will not own it

Clear as mud!

[TLspotting]

Air Belgium postpones resumption until 2 April 2021 for French Antilles flights, new BRU - MRU route gets postponed until 15 October 2021.

[SR20]

To give a bit more info of what we could read already regarding the freighters for Air Belgium.

CGA CGM, which is a shipowner, bought 2 A330 freighters from Qatar Airways. CGA CGM wants to step in also in airfreight by creating its own cargo airline. Air Belgium wants to use 2 of those of CGA CGM. So they will not own it

http://www.cma-cgm.com/news/3533/cma-cg ... r-aircraft

[SR20]

Some scepticism here :

https://theloadstar.com/cma-cgm-officia ... 330-200fs/

[sn26567]

I was wondering why Air Belgium's first A330F was registered OO-CMA and not OO-AB*. The answer is clear: CMA(-CGM) is the owner of the aircraft, and Air Belgium only the operator!

[Acid-drop]

Why OO then ?

[Acid-drop]

https://cargofacts.com/allposts/aircraf ... -the-move/