Originally Posted by
threeighteen
Unless you know something that I don't, purchasing an airline isn't free. Then you have to spend a ton of money to integrate it into your operation. So that would be your startup cost right there.
Better to have the lowest bidder making a small profit by treating their employees like crap than to buy an airline, and then have to give all the pilots a huge raise on the first round of negotiations (or risk a strike) because they now work for Amazon, one of the biggest companies in the US.
You're obviously a pilot and not a manager. If your contractor's pilots unionize and ask for a ridiculously expensive raise, you move the flying to the next contractor whose pilots are willing to work for $50k/year just to get that widebody type on their resume. It's called controlling your cost. Yes, you might have to pay the contractor enough for them to make a profit, but you're saving yourself from some very expensive exposure to actually owning an airline. If an ATI plane crashes in the middle of the night because the pilots were on their third leg and heavily fatigued, guess who's NOT getting sued? Amazon.
They will spend less and have more financial control over their labor groups by having the lowest bidder doing it, rather than bringing the flying in-house to a company that has no experience running an airline or dealing with a pilot union.
And you are completely missing how it is VERY easy to move flying all over the place? They just moved a ton of flying to ATI because ABEX went on strike, which is now why ATI is hiring. How in the world did you miss that key detail?
Amazon is ALREADY having labor dispute issues with the airline industry. Could you imagine how much worse it would be for them if they brought it in-house?
http://www.recode.net/2016/12/2/1381...abx-air-strike
You mention some good points but honestly, you and everyone else knows that it can go either way. I'm not an airline manager but my background is pretty varied.
I don't have time to address all your points and I'm not really interested in a huge back and forth, but I will address one point of yours. The "transfer" of flying from ABX to ATI. I'm very familiar with it so, no, it didn't escape me. As a matter of fact ABX has the Amazon flying back. That's not the reason ATI has been hiring. They have been hiring off and on at nearly the same pace as ABX. Just wanted to clear that up for you. And was it easy for them to do? It did take some time to get routes covered.