The 2025-2028 Large Freighter Gap Leasing Companies Need to Watch

The 777F line is closing. The next generation isn't ready yet. That gap is the story.

There's a clear 2025-2028 gap in the large freighter market. The 777F production line is closing, and no next-generation large freighter is yet available to replace it. In that window, the only large-capacity option is the 777-300ERSF — a passenger-to-freighter conversion — and that supply is constrained by feedstock: it depends entirely on how many retiring 777-300ER passenger aircraft are actually suitable for conversion. Both the A350F and the 777-8F land in 2028, which is when the market starts to normalize.

This is the window leasing companies should be thinking about now, not when the gap becomes obvious in utilization and lease rate data. A structural supply gap in large freighter capacity doesn't announce itself with a headline. It shows up first in tightening conversion feedstock, then in lease rates for anything with large-freighter payload-range, then in operators scrambling for capacity they should have secured two years earlier.

“A structural supply gap doesn’t announce itself with a headline.”

For a leasing company, the practical question isn't whether the gap exists — it does, and the numbers on 777-300ERSF conversion feedstock make that clear. The question is how to position a portfolio across it: how much exposure to hold in the 777-300ERSF conversion market while it's constrained (a live example of Capacity Is the New Currency in practice), when to commit to A350F or 777-8F delivery slots given the 2028 normalization, and how to price both against a market that will look meaningfully different on either side of that year. Getting the timing right on this gap is worth more than getting the aircraft type right.

Key questions about the large freighter gap

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