African carrier Kenya Airways has revealed plans to modify some of its older Boeing 737s into full freighters to help develop a new cargo network across East, Central and Southern Africa. The airline says it will convert four 737-300s into freighters and has already committed for the first two aircraft to be sent to Aeronautical Engineers Inc’s (AEI) authorised conversion centre, Boeing Shanghai Aircraft Services, in China.

According to Mbuvi Ngunze, Chief Operating Officer, Kenya Airways, the massive expansion of its cargo activities is to meet “surging cargo transportation demand” across Africa and beyond and will complement its existing Boeing 747-400 Safari Connection freight service. He describes the conversion of its passenger airlines as a “cost effective means of boosting efficiency and reliability” which will translate into a “significant enhancement” of the company’s revenue stream.

“We are using our own equipment with minimal additional investment making it cost effective; and since we already know the aircraft, minimal additional training is required to operate the aircraft,” he added. He revealed that the first unit, registration 5Y-KQC, would retire from service at the end of October. The aircraft will be ferried to China to undergo the three month conversion process and is expected to return to service as a freighter in February next year. A sistership will then be retired and is expected to enter freight service in June 2013.

Kenya Airways will use the jets on many of its existing passenger routes across Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa including destinations such as Juba, Luanda, Bangui, Douala, Yaoundé, Kigali, Entebbe, Dar-es-Salaam, Kinshasa and Bujumbura. It says the aircraft will enable its freight business to “capitalise on full cargo potential” of these routes which are currently served using bellyhold capacity on its Embrear E-Jet and Boeing 737 fleets as hawell as to accommodate excess baggage overspill.

The regional services will also help support the carrier’s long-haul Safari Connection freighter service to Guangzhou which is flown in partnership with Dutch carriers KLM and its freight specialist Martinair. This has been mainly focusing on West Africa bound flows. “The regional freighters presents value addition through expansion of flows from Far East to other Africa points, a perfect business solution for the in-feed, de-feed capacity mismatch,” said Mbuvi Ngunze.