Originally Posted by
Hedley
It’s not really that they don’t know about freight, it is that they think that they do. It’s a completely different game. I completely agree about the infrastructure. The freight competition is just as fierce as passenger flying, and if you don’t do it right, the competition will eat you alive. I sure wish that it would work though. Commuting to my base on my own airline and then taking a 777 freighter to NRT would be the dream. Flying in pajamas, no flight attendants, no passengers, no phone call to go to the lav, fix a meal when you want, long flights with long breaks.......once I could hold that, I’d never bid off.
From my short stint as a FE on the DC-10 freighter operation, I would have to agree. The planes were full and the revenue was there. They mismanaged the program to its ultimate demise. Simply stated, they tried to do too much with a limited number of aircraft and screwed the pooch.
What they are doing now is exploiting their capability to carry belly cargo in a high demand environment. UPS can’t keep up currently based on my neighbor who is an international shipping manager for them. Fed Ex is the same according to him.
On this topic, my hat is off to that part of management for seeing/exploiting the revenue opportunities that exist. AA and DAL do some but we are killing it compared to what he has showed me.
Will a dedicated freight operation be the end game of this, who knows? I would love it as well. The CAPEX for the dedicated fleet will be the true issue and feel we will roll back to pax revenue first and take the freight we can.
Lee