PolarBear

Forgiven ABXGO---Unfortunately, most of the industry has a misconception on what is really happening with the Atlas-Polar situation.

Some background on what is really what.

Atlas Air World Wide, Inc (AAWH) is a holding company with two subsidiaries that operate independently of each other. It owns Polar Air Cargo and it owns Atlas Air. Each operate under their own FAA certificate (Atlas as a Supplemental carrier, Polar as a Flag carrier). Each has their own crews and dispatch. Only Polar crews fly Polar airplanes, only Atlas crews fly Atlas airplanes. Atlas and Polar crews are not mixed, ie, an Atlas captain cannot fly with a Polar F/O and vice versa. A Polar crew cannot fly an Atlas airplane and an Atlas crew cannot fly a Polar airplane. (Think AWA and US Air---operations are totally separate).

AAWH has attempted to merge Atlas Air and Polar several times. For reasons unknown to both pilot groups, AAWH has aborted the process. Presently, their is no, repeat, no merger planned. AAWH called off the last attempt this past fall.

All the fuss you have heard about for the past year has been caused by "scope" clause violations caused by AAWH. Both Atlas Air and Polar pilots are represented by ALPA.

Atlas Air is an ACMI carrier. It has no route authorities (except US-Brazil). It wet-leases (ie, contracts out planes and crews ) to foreign carriers (Emirates, BA, etc) and flies under their callsigns.

Polar is a scheduled carrier with route authorities (US-Japan, US-China, US-Hong Kong) and operates scheduled service to about 10 cities worldwide.

This past July, AAWH got rid of all of Polar classic 747s. As a result, they terminated the PFEs and furloughed a 100 F/Os. Polar scheduled service did not go away. In fact, Polar was awarded more China routes to Beijing. Instead of growing Polar, AAWH, because of lost ACMI business, decided to "subcontract" the Polar work out to Atlas Air. Atlas Air starting flying approximately 4 a/c and 120 pilots on Polar routes using Polar callsigns.

This is when the proverbial "sh....t" hit the fan, so to speak. Polar ALPA filed grievances. These greivances were won by the Polar pilots----hence, the reinstatement of all terminated PFEs and furloughed F/Os with full back pay, etc.

A final grievance concerning Atlas Air flying Polar work is awaiting decision from the arbitrator as to the remedy.

As you would guess, relations between the three groups (AAWH, Atlas pilots, and Polar pilots) is not good. It is like a three-way cat fight. Picture a triangle, each group in its own corner, defending its turf, and nobody winning.

To complicate things further, DHL Worldwide just bought a 49% ownership interest of Polar. So as it stands now, AAWH owns 100% of Atlas Air and 51% of Polar. The pilots now have no clue as to what is happening and where this will lead.

So, to address your second thought about Polar being "...an airline without pilots, but crewed by atlas pilots..." is wrong. Polar is an airline with Polar pilots and Atlas is an airline with Atlas pilots, each standing on opposite sides of the river trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

I'm sorry to bore you will all of this. Just trying to clear the air.