Alaska Airlines to convert 2 more Boeing jets into freighters in bet on air cargo boom

Alaska Airlines is turning two of its midlife Boeing 737-800s into cargo planes, a bet that the pandemic boom in air freight will continue to generate revenue even after more passengers return to travel. The Seattle-based airline, the country’s fifth-largest, already has three smaller Boeing 737-700s dedicated solely to air freight. It’s a small number for a carrier whose mainline fleet stood at 217 planes at the end of 2021, but the pandemic has made cargo more important to airlines. Covid forced passenger carriers to cut flights, reducing belly space in planes around the world that would normally carry everything from live animals, packages, produce and pharmaceuticals. That drove up demand — and prices — for air cargo. Alaska has put out a request for proposals to convert the two planes to air cargo and hasn’t yet settled on a supplier. The increase in its cargo fleet could extend beyond the two planes, but it hasn’t yet committed to adding more. “I don’t think the magic number is two,” said Adam Drouhard, the airline’s managing director of cargo. The new planes will be dedicated to serving destinations in the state of Alaska. Companies including Boeing have been adding capacity to convert more passenger jets to cargo planes to capitalize on the trend. Cargo analyst Stephen Fortune said the conversion of a passenger jet into a freighter, which entails ripping out passenger seats and overhead bins, reinforcing the plane’s floor, and cutting a cargo door for easier loading, can cost around $5m.<br/>