Doha: While all global airlines faced significant operational challenges over the past two years, the use of their fleets has varied considerably – with Qatar Airways (QA) near the top of the range. Whereas most passenger-focused airlines posted cancelations of flights over several months, Qatar Airways continued to service a variety of destinations and pivoted to carrying more cargo, said a report released by Qatar Financial Centre (QFC)
“An increased global demand for air cargo led Qatar Airways to convert six passenger planes to freighters, resulting in the cargo division handling 2,727,986 tonnes of cargo in the 2020/21 fiscal year, or 4.6 percent more than a year prior,” said the report titled ‘The Qatar Financial Centre – A Compelling Destination for Aircraft Leasing Companies’.
“As a result of this adept change in business strategy, those wide-bodied planes in Qatar Airways’ fleet reached nearly the same productivity by the middle of 2021, as measured by time in use, as they had prior to the onset of COVID-19,” it added.
The world’s largest 30 lessors seek out deals with airlines that use their assets efficiently. Therefore, it is wise for these lessors to place their assets with financially secure operators such as Qatar Airways, it added.
Following its change in business strategy to prioritize cargo flights over passengers during the height of COVID, Qatar Airways has been able to expand its serviced network and become the world’s largest cargo carrier (excluding freight operators FedEx and UPS).
As passenger traffic slowed to a crawl at the peak of the pandemic, Qatar Airways’ cargo business more than tripled its daily flights.
During May 2020, the airline operated a record 183 cargo flights in one day.
Consequently, its cargo fleet’s productivity only dipped in the first quarter of 2020 and has performed strongly since. In addition to its direct services, Qatar Airways Cargo also ran more than 1,100 charters over the 2020/21 fiscal year.
Utilizing both their dedicated freighter fleet, mini freighters and capacity onboard Qatar Airways’ passenger fleet, Qatar Airways Cargo now delivers to 169 global destinations on nearly 250 aircraft.
This fleet is particularly diverse and flexible with 62 destinations serviced by freighters, 44 destinations by mini freighters, and 139 via passenger fleet bellies with a critical 32 percent of destinations enjoying at least cross-coverage of two service types.
Global aviation continued to be severely disrupted throughout 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however lessors filled the gap to enable a 63 percent year-on-year expansion of overall aircraft deliveries over the first three quarters of the year, said the report.
Over the first nine months of 2021, global aircraft deliveries totaled 761 versus 467 in the same period of the previous year when COVID-19 lockdowns were in effect. That said, this level of plane deliveries was still down from 2019 when they reached 1,054 and airlines were the primary recipients.
Nevertheless, a turnaround in the industry was evident and the driver has clearly been aviation lessors. Whereas prior to the onset of COVID in 2019 lessors only accounted for about 45 percent of the owners of the total global fleet, that rose to above 50 percent in 2021 during which time aircraft deliveries were recovering.
