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?
According to research by the Pew Research Center, deportations of unauthorized immigrants (aka "removal") actually peaked at 432,281 in FY2013, which is basically the end of Obama's first term and beginning of his second term. They then dropped to a low in FY2017, which would have been the last part of Obama's Presidency and the beginning of the Trump presidency. While deportations have started to rise again under the Trump administration, they are still well behind the peak reached during the Obama administration, and the Trump administration's deportation rate at this point in his Presidency is actually well behind Obama's at the same point in his Presidency. So perhaps Omni did get some benefits from supporting Trump, but it certainly does not appear that their business plan is dependent on the Trump administration's policies.