Pete Chareonwongsak, CEO of AirAsia logistics division Teleport, revealed on Wednesday that the Malaysian airline is in talks with Airbus SE over its interest in developing a new version of the A321neo passenger plane. While no development plans have been announced as of yet, AirAsia would be interested in converting a large portion of its order of 362 A321neo planes into freighters.
“For a lot of the markets that we need to reach both in range but also in capacity, it’s a great product. Would we be the launch customer? I don’t know. We’ll see,” he said.
With Southeast Asia in its sights, AirAsia is committed to expanding its eCommerce business, hence its growing need for cargo aircraft.
Despite there being no confirmed development of an A321neo freighter, Airbus is nevertheless competing to unseat Boeing Co as the leader in the dedicated cargo planes market. The company in July announced its plans to develop a freighter version of its A350 widebody jet.
Currently, both the A321 and 737 narrowbody passengar planes are being converted in cargo aircraft. There are no new-build freight planes that are currently in development.
