Originally Posted by
Bahamasflyer
I firmly believe that flying cargo is inherently MUCH MUCH less risky than pax. Seems to me that UPS/Fedex etc are not being hurt much by this, minus China itself.
To the contrary, seems that they can't find enough lift to transport supplies fast enough in this pandemic.
More to my point.......just look at how many pilots have been furloughed by pax carrier vs cargo in the last several decades. The difference is stargering I'm sure.
Am I correct?? Rick will hopefully set me straight if I'm off base
Depends on what you mean by cargo.
Purple and Brown have pretty much gone with the economy historically. Structural changes in said economy (online retail expansion) have worked in their favor for the last decade.
The rest of the cargo/ACMI industry is mostly not particularly stable, or lucrative compared to the big two.
The assumption by most (including me) was that purple and brown had a very solid lock on their overnight business, because of the incredibly high cost and complexity of setting up a global overnight network from scratch (if it doesn't have to be there overnight or within a day or two, then other modes quickly become more cost effective).
But then along comes one of the very few people in the world who actually COULD set up a global overnight network from scratch: Bezos. And he is obviously not looking for a single union pilot group... his corporate culture does not include happy employees, outsourcing and whipsaw are the name of the game. If he sticks with that model it could put a dent in the future prospects of the big two.