Originally Posted by
Atrasaty
Interesting, bearing in mind that Connie appears to be taking over the remaining TK contract from Atlas. This kind of bears out my original point that this unprecedented duty day gives a huge commercial advantage when bidding for contracts. The argument that it was necessary to avoid layovers in Bagram etc appears flawed as it is obviously being applied to civilian contracts to a large extent and will probably loom large in your future too. Atlas and everyone else would burn two complete crews with hotels and associated positioning costs to fly that rotation. I'm certain that the gross incompetence and disarray that is Atlas Air these days means we are more than capable of losing contracts on our own. However forgive us for not whole heartedly supporting your push for a life curtailing duty day.
These long days are due to being short on crews. generally, and as I have done in the past, these trips can easily be done within 16 or 18 hours. However per above often a 3rd leg is put on a double crew so a new double crew can do the rotation back to IST taking the duty day to close to or just over 24 hours, mainly due to TK inability to function efficiently.
A TK rep was saying that the decision was "mutual" between Atlas and TK to draw down the Atlas presence.