Just desserts

 Its time to get medieval in here.

Remember 10 years ago what people were saying about the 747 program back then?

That it was an uneconomical airplane, past its prime, That it had no more future in the industry, That it was no good as an airplane.

Well, a Mr. STC of EK airlines might be having buyers remorse. You see having over committed to the whalejet program and telling the whole world about his disdain for the type by not even buying the freighter version, you can best believe his interests have been damaged by his arrogant oversimplification of the circumstances of the market he is in. He is paying the price of driving forward without a rear view mirror.

Yes its true, that this moment will not last forever, but it will last for significantly longer, to which anything can happen. The market is shot, everyone in it is doing either or and there will be winners and losers. Any freight capability you had back then is so worth it, now. Shortsighted planning and Bias is the only explanation.

Look at it from this perspective, if anytime would be right to go in and make a pitch, it would be Right Now. What is up in the air here?

Sell STC 747's of course, tell him its a replacement offering a middle ground between the 777 and whalejet. Offer him a PIP package, with better range, also sell him a bunch of freighters. Tell them the engine type is common with the 787 that they ordered. Tell him also, that in the future when he is fed up with it he can dump it on the 2nd hand market to somebody who wants a P2F converted freighter. You can offer him a Combi too.

Does this sound Crazy?

Whats the goal of this? To ensure that in future, that his company has a large plane that is more versatile than current offerings. 

Lets face it people, versatility is still a selling point here. The 77X has no cargo version. The Whalejet is dead, and cargo is the winner, having yielded price increases sometimes over the 100 percent margin. If he had bought 748s back then he could dump then them into a P2F today and still make money selling his excess capacity whilst everybody else is paying parking fees.

Online of course, one can see the various pictures of 77Ws, whalejets,787's and A330's sitting in the sun and going nowhere, racking up fees and requiring a monitoring and maintenence program to boot. How much more money is to be spent making them fit to fly again? Goodness knows.

In fact, there are DC-8's coasting around carrying cargo because of its capability and nothing else and whilst the belly freight offered cost reductions, look at how it has hamstrung the cargo industry today. The dedicated freighters are overbooked, and dinosaurs are coming back to life to fill the void.

This is it, a whole industry in utter denial and refusing to believe in an alternate universe.  

It is a sad state of affairs and just shows up the fact that these well intended designs were configured to do only one thing and one thing only: To allow airlines to stitch pax of their money and make CEOs very happy, always adjusting of course, for inflation.