"DHL's collection of air carrier agreements is like a fruit basket in which no two pieces of fruit are alike."

True. And it appears that DHL is the rottenest fruit in the bunch

"Historically, DHL's carriers perform pretty much the same mission or serve the same market segment that they were in before DHL became involved. I recall their stated intention when buying into Polar was to secure lift between Asia and the U.S. From what I've been seeing I would guess DHL needs the equivalent of 1-2 airplanes on those routes right now. That's a guess on my part just from observing what flows into RIV, ILN & JFK. Cathay Pacific, Transmile & NWA are some of the carriers that have provided lift on those routes so far (not necessarily dedicated aircraft)."

With Lufthansa and NWA flying out of ILN, Kalitta flying out of JFK, and who knows how many others flying core product for our common customer, I think DHL will be able to put as many 74's to work as they have available.

Growth is always a possibility. DHL wants to grow, of course. Unfortunately a lot of their growth in the last decade has been through acquisition rather than service and marketing. At this end of the acquisitions, they have a whole bunch of pieces to put together. From my perspective it's not a coherent or efficient network. Until they figure out a better overall strategy, I'm not sure there's going to be big opportunities for any of us as individual carriers.

Spot on.

"When DHL bought our company (and spun us off) there was a mix of excitement and cautious optimism. The mood now is complete disappointment. DHL has not been good for Astar or ABX. There's still a chance that things will turn out well, but not if the company continues to conduct it's business as it has in the past. In the meantime, I would advise any pilot for a DHL company to keep their resume up to date."

I sure have. My app has been in with brown town since April. In the past month Astar has had about 8 - 10 pilots leave for greener (more intelligent) pastures.

DRIVER