Originally Posted by
Jurassic Jet
Hot off the presses:
ATSG Selects Boeing for Next Converted Freighter Order
IAI seems to be falling behind a bit on pushing CAM's 767s through at TLV, and Amazon's through at MEX. It seems like CAM had the opportunity to lease out additional freighters for which it didn't have conversion slots at IAI, or didn't have the confidence that IAI could deliver on-time. Accordingly, they went to Boeing for 4 BCFs, which Boeing can consistently get done in as little as 4 months, including painting, for a LOT more money. I will be interested to see if any of CAM's 6 feedstock aircraft at ILN (4) and the Desert (2) end up heading for QPG, or whether this is an entirely-additional group of planes.
This is what Atlas and DHL do/did: send as many aircraft to IAI as IAI can convert in the desired timeframe, and send the rest to Boeing, whose touch-work contractors (at QPG and TPE) have way more capacity than they need to handle any reasonable order -- but for much more cheese.