Emirates, the national carrier of the emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, says it is responding to the increased demand for freight aircraft, in particular to carry medical supplies, by making some modifications and using some its parked Airbus A380’s as freighters.
Surprisingly, even after modification, the A380 can only carry 50 tons of cargo in its “belly”, the area under the normal passenger decks, with Emirates having already converted several of 777 passenger aircraft to carry freight and they can carry 67 tons, which is surprisingly more than the much bigger A380 aircraft.
It appears that the reason that the A380 can only carry 50 tons in its belly is that having two decks to carry the maximum number of passengers, limited its freight space capabilities.
In the meantime, Emirates says it is looking at using the A380 seating area to carry cargo, but using the A380 as a freighter is challenging as it is described as one of the least cargo friendly aircraft, because it has four engines so it is not a very efficient aircraft, it has weak floors designed for passengers not freight and it has no large loading doors.
In addition, the second passenger deck that runs the full length of the aircraft, unlike any other aircraft, was only designed and strong enough to take people and seats, not freight, although it might be fine for light freight like masks and gloves, etc, but not for example for heavy refrigerated containers containing vaccines.
Another challenge is how to load freight on to the main and upper deck, as the A380 does not have cargo doors and for the upper deck, most airports do not have lifts for that height, which also means that loading would be slow.
Even though Lufthansa Technik seem to be leading the field in A380 freighter conversions, it does not look like we will see many A380s flying as freighters any time soon.
A report by John Alwyn-Jones
