Air Hong Kong leases Airbus A330 cargo jet from US provider

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Air Hong Kong, a freighter subsidiary of Cathay Pacific Airways, has signed a lease with Ohio-based Air Transport Services Group for an Airbus A330 passenger-converted cargo jet, bringing its all-A330 fleet to 15 aircraft.

The parent company announced the transaction on Thursday, saying Air Hong Kong will preliminary use the new medium widebody aircraft to serve mainland China and other regional destinations on behalf of leading customer DHL Express.

Cathay Cargo, a top 10 global cargo airline by traffic, operates its own fleet of 20 Boeing 747 freighters and manages cargo moving on Cathay Pacific’s passenger aircraft. It has ordered eight A350 next-generation freighter aircraft from Airbus.

“The Cathay Group is strengthening our freighter fleet to support Cathay Cargo’s capacity growth plans, strengthen our network, and reinforce Hong Kong’s status as the world’s leading air cargo hub. The additional capacity offered by Air Hong Kong’s latest A330 freighter will complement Cathay Cargo’s future A350F freighters, providing us with greater agility to build our regional cargo network and making more options available for our freight forwarder partners,” said Dominic Perret, who heads Cathay Cargo, in a news release.

The A330 freighter will join Air Hong Kong’s fleet in the fourth quarter, Cathay Cargo said.

The deal is noteworthy for ATSG because it is only the third A330-300 the company has paid to convert to cargo configuration and placed with a customer. ATSG, which has historically operated and leased Boeing 767 freighter aircraft, at one point had plans to acquire 29 A330s for cargo conversion. The first two planes were delivered to Turkey’s ULS Cargo Airlines last year.

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Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.