Emirates airline said it introduced additional cargo capacity by using Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with seats removed from the Economy Class cabin to meet strong air cargo market demand.
The demand is mainly for transportation of essential commodities such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, food, machinery and other supplies around the world.
Emirates SkyCargo will be operating 10 Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with Economy Class seats removed allowing for up to 17 tonnes or 132 cubic metres of additional cargo capacity per flight on top of the 40-50 tonne cargo capacity in the belly hold of the widebody passenger aircraft.
"Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Emirates SkyCargo has taken very seriously its responsibility of connecting people and businesses across the world with the commodities that they urgently require. To this end, we have been working flat out, first to re-connect a global network of more than 85 destinations and then to introduce capacity options that fit what our customers demand from us including passenger aircraft flying only with belly hold cargo and loading cargo in the overhead bins and on passenger seats," said Nabil Sultan, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President, Cargo.
The modification of 10 Emirates Boeing 777-300ER is being executed at the Emirates Engineering facilities in Dubai with each aircraft requiring close to 640 man-hours of work for the modification.
Engineers remove 305 Economy Seats from one aircraft, fixing safety equipment and implementing regular load bearing tests during the process. Seven aircraft have already been modified by the Emirates Engineering team, with three more aircraft due to be ready by mid-July 2020.
By the end of the project, the Emirates Engineering team would have removed 3,050 seats.–Khaleej Times
