Flight Daily News

Ameco Beijing, a joint venture between Air China and Lufthansa, is considering moving into the aircraft conversion business, and anticipates Air China’s fleet of Boeing 747-400 passenger aircraft will eventually be converted into freighters.

The maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) company’s executive director Zheng Yan says the decision to enter the freighter conversion business is still under investigation. “We have to make a decision in one year” says Zheng, adding that the Air China 747s “will definitely be converted into freighters in China”.

Zheng says the company’s top priority is meeting demand for line and heavy maintenance. Ameco is already building a new widebody maintenance hangar and a widebody painting hangar to meet demand for maintenance work and Zheng says it will only move into the freighter conversion business if it has spare capacity.

The main 747-400 passenger-to-freighter conversion provider is Taikoo (Xiamen) Aircraft Engineering. He says Ameco Beijing needs to be confident it can get third-party work beyond Air China’s aircraft fleet. Another concern is that there may be too many MROs competing for the job of converting 747 passenger aircraft into freighters. “There are too many people getting into the business,” says Zheng. According to Flight’s ACAS database, Air China has four Boeing 747-400s and eight 747-400 combis. Zheng says these aircraft are destined for Air China Cargo.