Transport a heavy helicopter, a satellite, a crane, containers, oversized industrial machines or health emergency equipment, quickly, anywhere in the world.
Airbus wants to meet this need by launching, in 2023, a new airline dedicated to XXL cargo.
It will be made up of a fleet of 5 Beluga ST, a large transport aircraft developed in the 1990s, which will gradually be replaced by a fleet of 6 Beluga XL, even more imposing, intended for the specific needs of transporting parts of Airbus aircraft between its factories in Europe.
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“
The Beluga ST fleet is still young.
This aircraft is in fact at mid-life with 15,000 flight cycles completed while its capacity has reached 30,000 cycles.
This is why, after having been consulted by several external customers, who have very large load transport needs, and having already carried out a few missions, we have decided to create a new freight transport service for external customers
”, explains Philippe Sabo, head of Airbus Transport International (ATI), the company dedicated to the internal transport of the European aeronautics giant.
A mission for NASA
Airbus has already made flights on demand.
At the end of 2021, a Beluga ST ferried a heavy helicopter from the Airbus Helicopters site in Marignane near Marseille, to Kobe, Japan, with three stopovers, including one in Novosibirsk, Russia.
In 2019, NASA also purchased a transport service from Airbus to transport modules for the International Space Station (ISS) from Europe to the Cape Canaveral launch base in Florida.
Airbus is drawing on decades of experience to offer this new service based on very large aircraft this year.
From the end of the 1960s, the European aircraft manufacturer (then Aerospatiale) used Super Guppys, built by the American Aero Spaceline, then acquired, in 1978, the license to have two units built by UTA Industries at Le Bourget.
Then, Airbus decided, in the 90s, to develop its own giant cargo plane, based on an A300-600, called Beluga ST.
The latter entered service in 1996, to carry out inter-site transport of the group's large sections and parts of aircraft in Europe.
A modern design device
In order to support the ramp-up of the A320 in particular, Airbus has decided to modernize this fleet, by developing a new generation Beluga with even greater capacity, called Beluga XL.
From February 1, the first 3 of the six planned aircraft will enter service in Europe, then two others in 2023 and the last the following year.
“
The Beluga XL will allow us to transport 4 A320 wings per flight, compared to 2 wings with the Beluga ST.
We are doubling the capacity while reducing flight hours and CO2 emissions by half
,” emphasizes Philippe Sabo.
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Compared to other giant cargo planes, the Beluga ST is a newer design, less fuel-intensive and more economical in terms of operating costs.
It offers a new offer in a niche market specializing in the transport of XXL loads, already occupied by aircraft designed in the 1960s such as the Lockheed C5, the Boeing C17 and the Ilyushin 76 or in the 1980s, like the Antonov 124/220.
The Beluga ST offers, according to Airbus, "
the largest interior section of any transport aircraft in the world, capable of accommodating oversized cargo, with a width of 7.1 meters and a height of 6.7 meters
" .
It will be able to carry up to 40 tons of cargo.
Develop a new service
The new company that will implement it will also be able to offer customers the services of a Beluga XL, capable of transporting up to 44 tonnes of payload in an even larger volume. "
Each flight will be accompanied by an à la carte service, depending on the customer's needs
," says Reza Fazlollahi, the project's business development manager. Beyond the tonnes transported, Airbus wants to be the specialist “
in large volumes and high value-added goods
”, he adds.
From 2022, Airbus will deploy this new service with two Beluga STs and then a third aircraft in 2023, the year in which the new airline will be officially launched.
5 Beluga ST will be operational in 2024 and prepositioned on “
strategic bases around the world
”.
"
The company will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Airbus, in order to develop this new service activity
", summarizes Clément Beaunis, director of transport projects at Airbus.
