What’s next?
At this point, demand is outpacing production capability, and Convey expects that, by 2018, AEI will be converting up to 15 CRJ freighters per year. By 2019, if everything else remains constant, that could rise to 20 per year, with AEI eventually converting between 150 and 200 units.
Even if Convey is overoptimistic in his estimates, the growth of the program speaks to the importance of thinking outside the box in an industry that is profoundly risk-averse.
At this point it’s also safe to make two assumptions. Firstly, that demand for airfreight products is neither static nor predictable. Factors such as e-commerce, supply-chain evolution, and the pilot shortage, to name a few, will continue to impact the size of aircraft and the frequency of routes for years to come. The CRJ200 is an example of this unpredictability. That leads to the second takeaway: The experts aren’t always right. Follow your gut, but do your homework.