Israel Aerospace Industries Completes First Airbus A330 Passenger-to-Cargo Conversion Flight

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) successfully completed the maiden flight of an Airbus A330-300 aircraft converted from passenger to cargo configuration. The flight, which lasted approximately 75 minutes, took off from Ben Gurion Airport and was piloted by IAI's Aviation Division test pilots who evaluated the aircraft's systems.

This successful test flight marks a significant milestone for IAI's new program to expand its conversion services to wide-body Airbus aircraft. The conversion process involved complex structural work, including the installation of a main cargo door measuring 3.6 meters wide and 2.6 meters high, enabling the aircraft to carry around 30 containers with a total payload exceeding 60 tons.

IAI's Aviation Division has decades of experience converting Boeing aircraft, including the 737, 767, and 777 models, having converted around 300 Boeing planes to date. The company began planning for the A330 conversion in 2022. IAI believes this new capability will open up an additional market segment, catering to the growing global demand for air cargo, partly driven by e-commerce expansion.

IAI estimates that a converted freighter aircraft costs 30% to 40% of a new one. Yaakov (Berko) Berkovich, head of IAI's Aviation Division, projects that IAI could reach an optimal conversion rate of 15 to 20 A330 aircraft per year within a decade. Following regulatory approval, the conversion of a single aircraft is expected to take about five months, supported by expanded conversion facilities worldwide.

The conversion involved approximately 100 workers daily, installing about 30,000 parts and removing around 350 passenger seats and related interior furnishings, totaling about 20 tons. The cargo conversion activity constitutes 40% to 50% of the Aviation Division's civilian operations. The division's sales reached approximately $1.61 billion in 2025, up from $1.48 billion the previous year.

This A330 conversion flight follows a busy business week for IAI, which included signing a "Protective Shield" deal in Greece for air defense systems worth about 3 billion euros and successfully demonstrating LORA missile launches from a vessel for the German Navy, potentially leading to another significant German contract.