Freighter Fleet
The share of widebody freighters in the world fleet will increase from 50 percent to 64 percent by 2025.
Over the next two decades, the world freighter fleet will nearly double, increasing from 1,789 to 3,563 airplanes. By 2025, 1,209 airplanes will be retired, and 2,983 airplanes will be added to the freighter fleet.
The disparity between traffic and fleet growth reflects a shift toward widebody freighters that will result in a fleetwide increase in average freighter airplane payload. Nearly 62 percent of all additions to the fleet will consist of either medium widebody or large freighters. In many cases, operators, including express carriers, will prefer to replace retiring standard-body freighters with medium widebodies. Thus, the share of standard-body freighters will decrease from 50 percent to 36 percent over the next two decades. In spite of this share reduction, more than 1,100 standard-body units will be delivered, representing a 45 percent increase in their number.
Nearly three-quarters of forecast freighter fleet additions will be modified passenger and combi airplanes. The remaining quarter of fleet additions, 766 airplanes, will be new production freighters. New production freighters dominate the large-size category because many airlines prefer the technical advantages, reliability, and fuel efficiency of purpose-built freighters. Although new airplanes make up a minority of the total world freighter fleet, the value of new freighter deliveries will total $169 billion. Freighters will maintain about a 10 percent share of the total commercial jet airplane fleet during the forecast period.