Originally Posted by wjcandee

That's interesting. I guess, of course, that "hiring" means accepted offers, with a future window in which to train people and put them in a seat. Because there would seem to be a need to have a slightly-higher number of active pilots at ATI by the end of this year. And maybe that's what you're saying.

CAM currently has four 767-300s in conversion at TLV, plus one that just flew from TLV to ROW for paint. So that's a total of five. The one in paint, 337AZ, will be in service at ATI in 3-4 weeks. The second one, 370AA, will be finished at TLV around now, but it's unclear to me whether it's going to ATI; I have heard that it is and that it isn't. The third and fourth, 395CM and 396CM, which are definitely going to ATI, will be done with conversion by August, and the fifth, 382AN (again unclear for what customer) by October. There was a chance that some of these would be held up because IAI/Bedek didn't have an STC to convert winglet 767-300s, but that issue seems recently to have been solved; 337, which is flying, has winglets.

There are also three other ex-AA aircraft that could be on their way to TLV soon-ish (and so wouldn't be out until around January, at IAI/Bedek's current pace, which is 5-6-7 months for the unpainted conversion (compared to 4 months currently for a painted BCF from QPG)).

So ATI needs to be ready to fly another three aircraft by August-ish, and that should indeed be it for the rest of the year. Yes, two of the three are designated as spares, but those should free up two aircraft that are currently being used as spares, so that those can be in regular service.

In short, ATI now has 11 Amazon routes and one hot spare (at ONT), covered with 14 aircraft. By late August, they will have the ability to do 14 or 15 routes plus a hot spare with 17 aircraft (and maybe even two more by the end of the year, depending on where 370AA and 382AN are going).

The rest of their business (757s) is apparently stable; neither the talk about DHL pulling down some or all of the 757 business nor the talk about the AMC offering enough additional business to make it worthwhile to acquire that still-stored last National combi conversion seem to have come true (yet). National is currently flying their two 757 passenger aircraft at a remarkable utilization level for an AMC provider -- more hours than the ATI combis see; if they ever finally fold, that's an obvious potential pick-up for ATI. But, for now, the 757 business is what it was.

So ATI will need a few more pilots this year (assuming attrition stays at expected rates -- an unknown unless ATI steps up, I think), but maybe they have indeed already "hired" those pilots and just now need to get them ready to fly for ATI.