Qantas to provide Freighter Aircraft to Australian air Express

Qantas is to convert four Boeing 737-300 aircraft to freighters for domestic freight operator Australian air Express (AaE).

The Chief Executive Officer of Qantas, Mr Geoff Dixon, said, "We will establish a new operation to undertake the work at our facility in Avalon, Victoria, creating 60 jobs.

"This new operation will convert four Boeing 737-300 aircraft into freighters and then wet lease this capacity to AaE."

Mr Dixon said that third party work such as this would give the Avalon base good growth prospects into the future.

The B737-300 aircraft are currently being utilised by the Qantas Group's New Zealand operation. They will be replaced in New Zealand by four Qantas B737-400s.

The conversion work will commence in April 2006 and be completed by January 2007, with the aircraft entering AaE service as they are completed from August this year. It will utilise conversion kits developed by Israel Aircraft Industries' Bedek Aviation division.

Once in operation, the converted aircraft will replace three of the AaE's fleet of Boeing 727 freighters.

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