Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH (EFW), center of excellence for Airbus Passenger-to-Freighter (P2F) conversions, has commenced operation at its new third-party freighter conversion site in Istanbul, Turkiye, after its first A330P2F was inducted as scheduled in October. This new Istanbul site is set up in collaboration with Turkish Technic. With the Istanbul site, EFW has a total of nine modifications sites carrying out its conversion programs across the globe.
“We are glad to get Turkish Technic on board, which has deep experience in maintaining Airbus aircraft,” says Jordi Boto, CEO of EFW. “By working with partners which have strong structural skills and operational excellence, we will ensure meeting our customer commitments in a robust manner.”
EFW’s A330P2F program is developed in collaboration with ST Engineering and Airbus, with EFW holding the Supplemental Type Certificate and leading in the overall program as well as marketing and sales efforts. To meet the strong demand for Airbus freighter conversions, ST Engineering and EFW say they have set up conversion sites in Asia, the US and Europe to ramp up conversion capacity for all their Airbus P2F programs comprising the A330P2F, A321P2F and A320P2F.
The A330P2F program comes with two variants – the A330-200P2F and A330-300P2F – which are both equipped with advanced technology that offers airlines additional operational and economic benefits. The A330-200P2F can carry a gross payload of up to 61 tons of weight to over 7.700 km, while the larger A330-300P2F can carry a gross payload of up to 63 tons and a containerized volume of up to ~18.581ft3 (~526m3).