Sky Vision Airlines’ Airbus A320 converted freighter, registration SU-SKD, is currently the only active A320 P2F worldwide, according to fleet data cited by aeroTELEGRAPH. The aircraft landed at Munich Airport on 25 September, using the southern runway at 19:30. Nine A320s have been converted to freighters; seven are stored and one has been retired, leaving SU-SKD as the sole aircraft still flying.
Delivered to Tiger Airways in 2006, the aircraft later operated for Scoot and Greece’s Orange2Fly. ST Engineering and Elbe Flugzeugwerke converted it in Singapore in 2023, and Sky Vision introduced it the following spring. India’s Pradhaan Air Express took over the first A320 P2F in July 2022.
Vaayu Group, based in the United Arab Emirates, was expected to take five converted A320s. Four were delivered: one each to Pradhaan Air Express and Sky Vision, and two operated by Vaayu’s Fly Vaayu. Five converted aircraft remain without an operator, the report says.
Demand has been constrained by competition from converted Boeing 737-800s and the A320’s economics. Its maximum payload is about 21 tonnes, against up to 28 tonnes for the A321, while engine costs are nearly similar, increasing the A320’s cost per tonne of cargo. Conversion also faces a technical complication: an angle-of-attack sensor sits where the large cargo door must be installed. Airbus outlined A320 and A321 conversion plans in 2010, and Airbus and ST Aerospace formally launched the programme in 2015. The A321 conversion programme has produced 81 aircraft.