The Role of Freighter Aircraft in a Full-Service Network Airline Air Freight Services: The Case of Qantas Freight

Glenn Baxter,Panarat Srisaeng,Graham Wild

doi:10.14311/mad.2018.04.05

Glenn Baxter, Panarat Srisaeng + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.14311/mad.2018.04.05

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Abstract

<p>The dedicated all-cargo aircraft market is vital to the global economy. Freighter aircraft now carry around 56 per cent of world air cargo traffic. Using an in-depth case study research design, this study examined the Qantas Freight Boeing B747-400 and B767-300 freighter aircraft route network design during the 2017/2018 Northern Winter Flight schedule period, which was in effect from the 29th October 2017 to March 24th, 2018. The qualitative data were examined by document analysis. The study found that Qantas Freight deploy their leased B747-400 freighter aircraft on a route network that originates in Sydney and incorporates key markets in Thailand and China with major markets in the United States. The Boeing B767-300 freighter aircraft operated 5 services per week on a Sydney/Auckland/Christchurch/Sydney routing as a well as a weekly Sydney/Hong Kong/Sydney service. The Boeing B747-400 freighter services could generate 114,755,020 available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs) over the schedule period. The Boeing B767-300 freighter aircraft could generate 46,974,1440 AFTKs. The Qantas Freight route network and freighter fleet is underpinned by Australia’s liberalized freighter aircraft policy, the “Open Skies” agreement between Australia and China – which permits the onward carriage of cargo traffic across the trans-Pacific – and the liberalized “open skies” agreement with New Zealand.</p>

Highlights

The air transportation of goods/freight for commercial purposes plays a significant role in the global economy
The aim of this paper is to examine the Qantas Freight freighter aircraft route network architecture and to quantify the total available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs) that these services produced during the 2017/2018 Northern Winter flight schedule period
International air transport operates within the framework of the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation and has been traditionally administered by a complex network of multilateral government air services agreements (ASA’s) and International Air Transport Association (IATA) rules

Summary

Introduction

The air transportation of goods/freight for commercial purposes plays a significant role in the global economy. [9] Much of the recent focus in the global air transport industry has been on the liberalization of the passenger market, but the regulatory structure has been applied to air freight activities. International air transport operates within the framework of the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation and has been traditionally administered by a complex network of multilateral government air services agreements (ASA’s) and International Air Transport Association (IATA) rules. [14, 15] The 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation later reinforced this framework through codifying the rights and responsibilities of air service providers into a set of rules known as the Freedoms of the Air (Table 1) [16]. Commercial air rights were left to bilateral air services agreements to be negotiated between individual countries. The Bermuda 1 agreement set strict limitations regarding (1) ex post facto capacity, (2) designation of airlines, (3) air traffic rights in terms of which routes are to be served by the designated airlines, and (4) double approval of tariffs by both Governments. [18]

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