Azul Cargo has put another aircraft into service in recent days, it is the Embraer E195 E1 registration PR-AUO, which has been serving the company's and Mercado Livre's parcels since last week.
This Tuesday (04/10) the aircraft visited Goiânia in its first cargo operation. It is noteworthy that previously the PR-AUO carried engers, until it assumed an adapted freighter configuration.
In the photo above we can see a little of the loading of 5600 kg inside the E195-E1, and the aircraft took off from Goiânia to Viracopos, fulfilling flight 2091, with 5000 kg on board.
According to sources at Portal AEROFLAP, most of the cargo on board was made up of orders from Mercado Livre, in a partnership that Azul maintains with the e-commerce site, despite the recent agreement signed by GOL.
In the photo above, we can also see that the plane maintains the aisle, as the cargo is anchored in the places where the seats are attached. The upper cabin finishes are still present on the plane, and for this type of operation they add unnecessary weight in the cabin, however, Embraer has not yet presented options for converting the E-Jet to cargo.
The airline completed the adaptation, in partnership with LHColus Tecnologia, to remove all the seats from the aircraft and adapt the plane's floor for the transport of pallets. The plane will still not have a cargo door, like the company's 737F, point that is still being studied by Embraer for adapting the E-Jet.
Previously the director of Azul Cargo, Izabel Reis, declared that the adaptation for the Embraer E195-E1 being fully freighter allows a jump from 6 to up to 11 tons carried on board.
History of E-Jets freighters on Azul
During the pandemic, in 2020, Azul needed to reinforce its air cargo division due to the greater demand in this market. With several planes grounded, the airline decided to adapt some E-Jets to carry up to 6 tons of cargo.
In all, four aircraft of this model are now performing cargo flights, complementing the fleet of Boeing 737-400F aircraft (2 in total) and ATRs, which Azul adapts in 50 minutes for cargo according to need.
At the time, ANAC requested that some seats remain inside the aircraft to limit displacement, and that the process of securing the cargo be changed, due to the lack of attachment points for pallets and all necessary structure.
The seats limit the interior capacity of these E-Jets, reducing the maximum load carried on board to 6 tons. In 2021, Azul announced that some studies were carried out to fully adapt the interior for cargo transport, increasing the total capacity by four tons.
Each aircraft needs to be included in the cargo transport category by ANAC, before starting operations. Discover all of Azul's cargo planes Clicking here.
