Originally Posted by
dutch747
Not true. Cargo 360 had a lucrative Korean Air Contract that kept their 3 Freighter flying in excess of 200 hours a month. All CM's at Cargo 360 averaged flying around 70-80 hours a month. Cargo 360 was purchased by Oak Hills who then put in an order for 5 777's and then bought Southern and decided to combine the 2 carriers under the Southern certificate ran by the Neff's. -This is all fact.
Southern had a contract with Korean before Cargo 360 was even in existence. They even flew Cargo 360's contract for close to 6 months while they were stumbling on their proving runs.
Cargo 360 had no ACMI diversity, just the Korean contract which was due to the ties that management had with Korean. Delta was brought in to Korean to address safety issues. The ties were so strong that displaced Korean Air FE's flew their original Korean Pratt powered Classics. That was part of the deal that they had. Those engineers were later picked up by Southern as part of the merger.
In the ACMI world, movement from the Classics to the -400 was precipitated more by regulatory changes that had to do with aging airframes & wiring. Connie was able to run them longer than anyone else because of his resourcefulness. In addition to that, fuel economy and falling -400 lease rates were a factor as well.