Freighter market is booming and Middle east is not behind ! MENA Cargo Airlines is all set to become Bahrain’s third freighter operator.
Following the successful completion of proving flights, MENA Cargo Airlines secured the air operator’s certificate and can now officially operate from Bahrain using it's sole B737-300F.
The Airline took it to the social media and said,
MENA #Cargo has successfully completed its proving flight. The new airline’s Boeing 737-300 converted freighter, which has a payload capacity of up to 17,000kgs, took off from #Bahrain International Airport at 3:30pm on October 11th for a round trip to #Sharjah, UAE.
Everything went well with the proving flight, which was one of the requirements attached to MENA Cargo’s recently-awarded Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC).
The MENA Cargo Team will have more exciting announcements soon, as they ramp up to full commercial operations before the end of the year.
MENA Cargo, thats part of the MENA Aerospace Enterprises, that targets the six GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries and to India in the first phase ,and plans to expand into North and Eastern Africa at a later stage.
Peter Hewett, MENA Cargo director of ground operations and procurement says,
“It’s booming at the moment,” Hewett said. “You see air cargo figures have more than doubled and tripled with some airlines, and a lot of airlines have now started this process of converting their passenger aircraft into mini freighters, so obviously there’s a lot of influence around the world of what global managers were doing,” he added. “That allowed us to make a decision to look at this to see how we can make this work, and we decided it was a steppingstone for us.”
An end customer is already lined up for the first aircraft, Hewett said. “These are long-term deals. Then obviously we want to [be able to] do a few of the short-term charters as well because of the market.”
B737-300F is a very much suitable aircraft for the GCC due to it's range, payload and Price, believes higher management of MENA Cargo Airlines . Due to high demand, freighter availability is scarce and converting a plane would take more than four to six months, assuming a company already holds a slot.
“If you start looking at some of the newer freighter types,” while there are the benefits of additional capacity and range, “there’s a massive increase in terms of lease costs,” Hewett said. “The -800s are now starting to become available and we’re in discussions with a lessor to see how we can firm up a deal for an -800,” he added.
MENA Cargo will continue to lease aircraft in short term and would consider purchasing if the business demand allows . However , the carrier has a Vision for it's growth.
In the long term, MENA is looking to develop strategic partnerships with integrators, premium freight forwarders and cargo agents to meet the growing demand in untapped markets in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
“We will probably need a fleet of maybe up to fifteen aircraft that will be distributed between Bahrain, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.”
