Canada’s Cargojet confirms addition of B777-300 freighters

Having raised CAD350,156,500 Canadian dollars (USD275.9 million) through a share offering with the aim of funding an expansion of its fleet, Cargojet Airways (W8, Hamilton, ON) has now confirmed on social media that it will take on its first Boeing B777 dedicated freighters, specifically the B777-300(ER)(SF). “We welcome the B777-300ER to our freighter family as we expand our routes and international growth. Our focus continues to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations,” the company said on February 11. The announcement came in the same week that Cargojet unveiled plans in a February 10 press release for fleet and route expansion “starting 2021 and beyond.” Cargojet “is rapidly moving forward to execute on its growth strategy to capture additional e-commerce volumes and international air freight opportunities through an expanded fleet,” it said in its statement. The fleet expansion will consist of bringing in five B767 freighters, announced earlier, to begin arriving in the third quarter of 2021 with one additional freighter arriving every quarter thereafter. Two of these will be deployed to its domestic network “to meet projected e-commerce growth and add stand-by capacity,” while the other three will be used for international routes “to select strategic destinations to capture emerging growth opportunities beginning Q4 2021.” Then two B777 freighters will be arriving in 2023, with Cargojet having the option to add two more of these in 2024. The first two will be deployed on “long-haul Asian routes and emerging South Asian markets strategically integrated with Cargojet’s domestic network” and, in addition, they will serve “select European and south-central and North American cities.” According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, the Canadian cargo specialist currently operates eight B757-200(PCF)s, three B767-200(ERBDSF)s, four B767-300(ERBCF)s, and ten B767-300(ERBDSF)s, and it currently complements its in-house fleet with two ATR42-300(QC)s wet-leased from First Air (7F, Carp).