Vallair acquires another A321, destined for P2F offering

Vallair, the France-based aircraft trading, leasing and specialist MRO business, has added a further Airbus A321 aircraft to its portfolio under lease.
The aircraft was bought from Plane Business and adds to Vallair’s existing stock of A320 family aircraft. Six other A321s were recently acquired, and all these aircraft are expected to be put on to short-term lease agreements.
However, longer term, these aircraft will ultimately serve as ongoing feedstock for the Vallair’s A321-200 P2F (passenger to freighter) conversion programme.
Peter Koster, head of the cargo conversions business unit at Vallair, observed that the company is building up its portfolio of leased assets, with a bias to more mature aircraft.
“From a single aircraft in 2017, our fleet has now grown to sixteen,” he pointed out.
“We’re meeting operators’ diverse needs by taking end-of-service aircraft and extending the life of these assets via the creation of cost-effective and flexible lease options.
“After cargo conversion these aircraft will form the cornerstone of Vallair’s growth strategy as we seek to meet the increasing demand of operators worldwide.”
Of those six A321s acquired in recent times by Vallair, three are known to have gone on short-term lease to Onur Air of Turkey and another to Windrose, a Ukrainian charter carrier.
P2F
Vallair is acting as the launch customer for the A321-200 P2F programme, collaborating with Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW) of Germany and ST Aerospace of Singapore.
ST Engineering is responsible for the engineering development phase, up to Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) approval by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Airbus contributes to the programme with Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) data and certification support, while EFW leads the overall programme and undertakes marketing and sales.
It was confirmed in February last year that Vallair had signed a contract to take delivery of 10 A321-200 aircraft converted to a 14-pallet cargo configuration.
Koster informed: “The A321 P2F conversion program is the first in its size category to offer containerised loading in both the main deck (up to 14 container positions) and lower deck (up to 10 container positions).
“With a generous payload-range capability that can carry up to 27.9 metric tons over 2,300 nautical miles, the A321 P2F is the ideal narrowbody freighter aircraft for express domestic and regional operations.”
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