Coronavirus is now known to be aviation's biggest farewell party. It is hard to believe just one A380 is flying in the sky at the moment!

It is not even a scheduled A380 flight, but a repatriation charter operated by Lufthansa on behalf of the German Government.

At the same time, I noticed how many Boeing 747s are flying in the sky, covering almost all continents.

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All but 3 of the B747s flying in the sky are cargo flights, using the freighter model of the 747. The essential airfreight fleet has hardly been impacted by the coronavirus.

The A380 was never built as a pure freighter and in a twist, for various design reasons, it is not a good freighter, using the belly cargo/baggage space, compared to the smaller 777-300ER, 787, A330 and A350.

For instance, the 777-300ER can carry 53 tons of cargo under the passenger floor, while the 787-10 can fit 50 tons.

There are now many passenger aircraft being used as freighters as almost 90 per cent of air cargo was carried on passengers flights.

Air transport carriers 40 per cent by value of the world's trade.

This article first appeared on SamChui.com