Originally Posted by NeverShytoAsk

Based on what one can read in the news, ATSG (Omni’s parent company) was a big and public supporter of the Trump campaign in 2016 and got rewarded nicely with deportation flights and Covid-19 bailout money, even as revenue of the ATSG group increased during the pandemic. Some left leaning media even got into the habit of calling Omni now “The Deportation Airline”.

There is quite some critique in the news and the political left about this, which I personally find not justified. In particular, the claim is that Omni has now pretty much a monopoly on a lot of “high risk” flights with the current government and that contracts are given without sufficient oversight and are being “overpaid”.

No matter if that critique is justified or not, I wonder what happens if Biden wins and the immigration policy makes a 180 turn (no more deportations) and the contracts to fly military personal get shaken up and rewarded and/or paid differently. Based on what ATSG management already said on the last investor call, they already expect a relevant reduction in passenger flights in the second half of 2020.

Does anyone have any insight on this, in particular how diversified Omni is in order stomach expected radical changes under a democratic presidency?

ATSG is much more optimistic about its cargo operation of their other “airlines” ABX and ATI. The natural question to ask is if the pilot groups are completely separate, or is it reasonable to assume that in a worst case scenario some Omni pilots would get “transferred” to the cargo operations?