Breakbulk and Project Cargo

Market navigates medium-term cuts to heavy-lift air cargo capacity

Some of the world’ s largest cargo aircraft will reach the end of their usable life in the next decade. vicspacewalker / Shutterstock. com

By Carly Fields

The clock is ticking on the medium-term availability of aircraft for heavy-lift cargoes, with soaring demand clashing with an aging specialized fleet and no clear path to replacing assets.

Consensus among specialists in the sector is that the An-124, while capable of life-extending modifications, has a finite lifespan. The An-124 is the world’ s heaviest gross weight production cargo airplane currently operating.

Luís Branco, managing director of project freight forwarder L. Branco Lda., questioned the future of these heavy-lift air cargo workhorses.

“ Their life can be extended, but there will be some point in time when there can be no more extensions,” he said.

Replacing these giants is a monumental task.“ It costs not only millions to develop them but years to design, and then you need to find someone to finance it,” Branco added.

Ruslan Bykovets, head of air transportation at Ukrainebased Antonov Airlines, operator of seven An-124s, said that the first of those aircraft will reach the end of its operational life in 2034. Bykovets told the Journal of Commerce that Antonov is working on a modernization program that will add 10 more years to their working life.

However, Ritesh Nair, head of projects at project cargo forwarder Rhenus Projects, acknowledged the modernization program was just a“ soft stop-gap arrangement.”

International sanctions applied against Russia in response to its 2022 invasion of Ukraine have exacerbated the heavy-lift aircraft availability problem.

“ When sanctions were applied to Russia in 2022 the available fleet on the market dropped 60 %,” Bykovets said. That dramatic reduction, coupled with rising demand, has inevitably led to higher air charter rates.

Financiers, builders needed

Market experts raise the question of who will build the next generation of heavy-lift aircraft, ruling out manufacturers such as Boeing or Airbus.

Without new investment, Bykovets said heavy air freight cargoes will either need to be sent by sea— with much longer transit times— or cargoes will need to be dismantled to fit into 747s or 777s. However, the latter is not an option for extra heavy cargo, such as transformers or refinery station engines, he said.

When the An-124s were first manufactured, they were funded by the government for military purposes.“ Any entrepreneur today would be a little skeptical about laying

out so much money, so a government agency has to step in to be able to fund these,” Nair said.

In the face of those challenges, he said“ out-of-the-box solutions” could be explored, such as cargo going“ to where the aircraft is” instead of the other way around.

“ Their life can be extended, but there will be some point in time when there can be no more extensions.”

Nair also championed consolidation.

“ Most of the charters that are happening are full charters, and a lot of space gets wasted,” he said.“ Can a couple of forwarders, or even Antonov, entertain other inquiries, bring two cargoes together and fly them out?”

But Bykovets said that would not be feasible as each chartered An-124 flight is a unique project, noting that adding another piece of heavy-lift cargo to the same flight would mean“ twice the amount of people needed to load it.” Clients paying $ 1.5 million for a full charter would not want third-party cargo included in their chartered aircraft, he added.

Amid the challenges, demand for heavy-lift air cargo remains robust. Bykovets identified military assets as the top cargo, followed by aerospace, adding that aerospace cargo volumes have“ increased five times since COVID.” He said oil and gas-linked air freight demand is starting to grow again, while heavy-lift air cargoes for the power market are also on the rise.

email: carly. fields @ spglobal. com

32 Journal of Commerce | July 7, 2025 www. joc. com