Air Canada is ripping seats out of 3 of its largest jets to turn them into cargo planes. See inside the new Boeing 777 temporary conversions.
Three of Air Canada's Boeing 777-300ERs, the carrier's largest plane, will undergo the reconfiguration to fly freight in both passenger cabins and cargo holds.
In the past month alone, the carrier has flown 40 cargo-only flights and is aiming for 20 per week moving forward. The three reconfigured 777s will join the existing fleet of standard configuration 777 and 787 Dreamliner aircraft flying primarily to Europe and Asia.
Source: Air Canada
Inside the aircraft, economy and premium class seating will be removed to house the cargo, to be secured using nets.
Source: Air Canada
Each aircraft with have four cargo zones with the business class cabins remaining untouched with seats left intact. The maximum weight of each zone varies but hovers around 3,000 pounds.
Source: Air Canada
The conversions are being performed by Avianor at the firm's facility at Montreal's Mirabel Airport. The cabin reconfiguration specialist designed and implemented the concept in six days, quickly clearing it with Canada's aviation regulator Transport Canada.
Source: Air Canada
Lightweight boxes will be placed in the cabin with heftier cargo being loaded into the hold below. As no major modifications beyond the seat removal are being performed, the cabin is limited in what it can carry.
Source: Air Canada
Loading the passenger cabin also isn't as easy as the hold since all boxes must be able to pass through the narrower boarding doors that aren't designed for freight.
Air Canada isn't the first carrier to hold cargo in its passenger cabin but is one of the few to reconfigure entire aircraft to do so.
The new configuration allows the aircraft to fly nearly 90 metric tons of cargo across both platforms, the equivalent of 9 million masks or enough to cover just over a fourth of Canada's population.
Source: Air Canada
Two Boeing 777s have already departed the Mirabel facility bound for Toronto and then Shanghai and Tokyo, FlightRadar24 data shows.
Source: FlightRadar24
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