Cargo Airlift What’s Old? What’s New?

World air cargo traffic will grow to nearly 120 billion revenue tonne-kilometers in the year 2000, 42 percent in freighters and 58 percent in passenger aircraft with lower deck or “combi” cargo configurations. Advancing technologies in the 1990s will collectively result in aircraft fuel efficiency improvements nearing 50 percent, achieved primarily through incorporation of ultra-high-bypass (UHB) propulsion. New concepts for containers and aircraft cargo/baggage handling systems are proposed to meet the time-compressed demands placed by major hub/spoke operations. The new advanced MD-11 trijet passenger/combi/freighter is briefly reviewed, as are three advanced-design standard-body derivative freighter candidates for the 1990s: the MD-91X, MD-92X, and the all-new MD-94X, which may derive from a double-aisle passenger baseline. A candidate concept for the “Orient Express” is touched on.