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Air cargo and logistics
Published in Lucy Budd, Stephen Ison, Air Transport Management, 2020
Most passenger airlines, including some low cost carriers, carry belly freight in their cargo holds. Wide-body aircraft are especially capable of carrying large payloads. Much of this freight travels in specially designed air cargo containers called unit load devices (ULDs) that allow a large number of individual items of freight to be packed in a single unit. The ULDs are manufactured in different sizes and will fit only specific types of aircraft. Some passenger airlines also operate dedicated cargo aircraft. The most popular types of freighter aircraft operated by passenger–cargo combination airlines are long-range, high-capacity aircraft, including the Boeing 777 and Airbus 350 families. Compared to integrators, passenger– cargo combination airlines (e.g. Cathay Pacific and Korean Air) or their fully owned cargo subsidiaries (e.g. Emirates SkyCargo, Lufthansa Cargo, and Singapore Airlines Cargo) have much smaller fleets of dedicated freighter aircraft. Nevertheless, the access to the belly holds on passenger flights and extensive route networks with frequent scheduling options provide a distinct advantage for passenger–cargo combination airlines. As a result, it is estimated that about 50 per cent of air cargo traffic worldwide (RTK) is carried by aircraft that are also carrying passengers, using their belly-hold capacity. The carriage of belly-hold cargo can complement passenger services and make an otherwise unprofitable route into a sustainable one (see Case Study 17.3).
Hybrid market structure and the aviation industry
Published in Bijan Vasigh, Ken Fleming, Thomas Tacker, Introduction to Air Transport Economics, 2018
Bijan Vasigh, Ken Fleming, Thomas Tacker
The commercial aircraft manufacturing industry is largely a duopoly (an oligopoly with two firms). Airbus and Boeing compete in the 100-seat plus aircraft category and Bombardier and Embraer compete in the regional aircraft market. The market is typically divided into two product categories: narrow-body and wide-body aircraft. Narrow-body aircraft are single aisle, short-range aircraft that typically carry 100–200 passengers. Wide-body aircraft are double aisle, medium- to long-range aircraft that can carry 200–450 passengers. Consolidation in aircraft manufacturing occurred with the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing and the exit of Lockheed from commercial aircraft manufacturing. Since commercial aircraft manufacturing is extremely capital intensive, it is unlikely that another manufacturer will enter the market. In 2007, however, China announced its intention to start making large commercial aircraft by 2020 (Bodeen 2007). The nation is expected to purchase 2,230 new aircraft before 2025. Indeed, the demand exists, but the technology proved to be a major barrier (Bodeen 2007). In an attempt to overcome this barrier, China reached an agreement with Airbus to open an A320 final assembly line (Bodeen, 2007). The goal of this venture was to gain technical knowledge that would translate into success for China’s own large aircraft program. The proof of this technological skill transfer was the launch and first flight of passenger jet, ARJ 21 in June 2016. This 90-seat jet was built entirely by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). A further development in the Chinese aircraft manufacturing sector came after the announcement of the larger COMAC C919, a narrow-body aircraft capable of carrying up to 268 passengers. This model is touted as competition to both the A320 and the B737. COMAC reported receiving orders from 21 customers for a total of 517 aircraft, mostly from Chinese carriers but also from GE Capital Aviation Services.
Assessment of aircraft landing gear cumulative stroke to develop a new runway roughness evaluation index
Published in International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 2022
Shifu Liu, Jianming Ling, Yu Tian, Jinsong Qian
Currently, Boeing and Airbus occupy more than 90% of the aircraft market. Depending on size, the aircraft can be divided into narrow-body, wide-body, and large wide-body aircraft. Liu showed that narrow-body aircraft should be used for runway roughness research (Liu et al. 2018). Therefore, we selected the B737-800 for this study after comprehensive consideration of Boeing’s market share and release of parameter data. Figure 3 shows the fully assembled B737-800 aircraft model as simulated using ADAMS/Aircraft software.