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Comment by xvf22 | Hacker News Reader

Cargo companies seem to have older fleets and the 767s are being displaced from passenger service and have a cargo conversation option. The a380 doesn't have a cargo conversation option as far as I've seen. Plenty of old 747s are in service for cargo flights. Kalitta air has a bunch of older 747s and Atlas has a sizable fleet including some 8Fs.

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Interesting point: The original reason for the double deck design on the 747 was to allow the entire nose to be a cargo door. Having an upstairs lounge or first class cabin was side benefit.

Boeing looked at many possible configurations for the 747, a full-length double-deck among them (photos exist of such a wind tunnel model). The short top deck exists for a variety of reasons, one of the more interesting ones is that the 747 was designed to be faster than later airliners, so the Whitcomb area rule is a factor in its design, especially noticeable in the -400 model, where the top deck ends above the wing root leading edge.

Note that the 400 and 800 freighters kept the short bump because the longer upper deck reduced main deck height and impaired cargo handling. That's also the main reason that passenger 400s are seldom converted to freighters.

Thanks for the info (I did not know that)!

Pretty sure I’ve read there will never be a cargo a380 because its max takeoff weight is low compared to its volume.

I think cause and effect may be chasing each other here. You're not wrong, but also the A380 was not designed to have a high takeoff weight because they never intended it to carry cargo, so it will never carry cargo because it has a low takeoff weight compared to its volume.

It was a design decision to be a people mover. [0]

0: https://www.flexport.com/blog/airbus-a380-no-cargo-equivalen...

Many low-density things need to be shipped fast, though. But I guess that niche is not big enough.

> cargo conversation

I guess you mean "cargo conversion"?

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