After two years of trials and testing, Vallair has finally delivered its first A321F, a passenger aircraft reconditioned as a cargo plane, for Australian airline Qantas Vallair

 After two years of trials and testing, Vallair has finally delivered its first A321F, a passenger aircraft reconditioned as a cargo plane, for Australian airline Qantas Vallair

“The Airbus A321F represents the future of cargo conversions,” said Vallair president and founder Grégoire Lebigot in a statement on Tuesday. “Not only is this aircraft more environmentally friendly thanks to 20% lower fuel consumption, but it is also more efficient in terms of range, volume and payload.”

“We landed in one piece,” said Wolfgang Schmid of EFW, the company behind the conversion, in late January when the first two test flights took place in Singapore, where the passenger aircraft was reconfigured into a plane that can hold 15 containers on its centre deck and ten in the cargo bay.

“We are obviously proud to be the first in the market with the A321F and we have recently signed a leasing agreement with SmartLynx Malta for two new Airbus A321-200 Cargo aircraft. Finally, last week we announced an agreement with Global X, a new American airline based in Miami, with whom Vallair has signed a letter of intent for the leasing of ten A321Fs which will all be delivered and operational by spring 2023”, the Lebigot said.

According to the press release, 1,500 ageing aircraft are expected to be converted over the next ten years to meet needs in a context of the fight against polluting emissions. For Vallair, 400 A321Fs should take off.

This article was originally published on Paperjam.lu in French.