The Boeing 757’s days as a passenger-carrying jet may be numbered, and that’s good news for the company that’s converting the airplanes to cargo haulers in Everett.
Leasing companies have a lot of 757s they can’t place with airlines, which is spurring leasers to consider Precision Conversions’ program to transform the planes, said Brian McCarthy, vice president for marketing and sales for the North Carolina-based joint venture.
The market now appears bigger than originally anticipated, McCarthy said. "We’ve got a good playing field right now."
McCarthy spoke during a recent industry presentation at Goodrich Corp. in Everett. Precision Conversions has hired Goodrich’s Everett-based Aviation Technical Services unit, which specializes in commercial jet maintenance and overhauls, to do the conversion work.
More than three dozen potential customers were expected last week to visit Goodrich’s Hangar 2 at Paine Field, where mechanics are overhauling the first 757-200PCF.
The goal is to have the work completed and certified by the Federal Aviation Administration so the plane can enter service in the first quarter of 2004.
Precision originally estimated a market for about 160 converted 757 cargo planes, McCarthy said. But that figure could end up higher. Precision is going to be the first on the market with a certified 757 freighter, and it hopes to capture at least 60 percent of the total conversions.
So far, Precision has landed four firm orders for the converted jets from leasing companies Boullion Aviation and Ansett Worldwide, along with seven options, he said.
An analyst said there is a market for converted 757s, but it’s a tough one.
"Pricing’s pretty brutal," said Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group in Virginia. "Margins are pretty low."
The converted 757s will compete with used A300s and A310s that Airbus and its partners are converting to cargo use, he said.
United Parcel Service and Ansett Worldwide both bought new 757 cargo planes and are logical customers for used ones, Aboulafia said, but much of what drives the conversion market is the fact that so many passenger planes sit unused.
The plane now being converted is one that Goodrich stored for the leasing company that owned it, said Ramsey Sarkis, Goodrich maintenance manager.
It sat for a long time, Sarkis said, because "757 passenger airplanes aren’t really a hot commodity on the market right now."
The new plane marks a new approach in passenger-to-cargo conversions, McCarthy and Sarkis said.
The biggest challenge in converting passenger jets to cargo haulers lies in installing large cargo doors to ease the handling of pallets in and out of the plane. In most cases, Sarkis said, that simply meant taking a cargo door, cutting a hole in the side of the plane big enough for the door to fit, and then building up heavy reinforcement around the edges of the hole to support the weight of the door.
Precision designed a new approach that entails removing the panels and stringers from one side of an entire section, and incorporating the door into the framework of the plane as Boeing designed and built it, rather than cutting through the framework and grafting the door into it.
The result, McCarthy said, is a sleeker and lighter cargo jet, which capitalizes on the 757’s already considerable fuel efficiency.
It also makes for an easier conversion job for mechanics, Sarkis said.
Still, "It’s a big job… a major modification," Sarkis said. "It’s very structural. Ninety-nine percent of it is sheet-metal work. Most of the stuff we do is interior rearrangements, avionics modifications."
More orders would be good news for the 30-plus Goodrich mechanics now working on converting the first plane. Goodrich "has got the horsepower" in terms of people and facilities, McCarthy said. "We plan on a long relationship."
Reporter Bryan Corliss:
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