Originally Posted by vroll1800

hvydriver, I'm retired too. After a day of (non)creative loafing, I feel obligated to make some corrections to your post. First of all, ABX did not vote in the concessionary 2009 contract to undercut Astar for DHL business, but to better enable ABX to be competitive in securing non - DHL contracts. Recall that DHL severely downsized their US footprint in 2008, eventually resulting in the furlough of over 60% of the ABX pilot group. Seeing that furloughed pilots were allowed to vote on the contract, it had to give ABX a fighting chance to secure more business beyond the scope of DHL, and hopefully result in more recalls. Sadly this did not occur to any great degree, as ATSG was more inclined to dry lease aircraft to bottom feeder airlines rather than seek additional flying opportunities for the ABX crew force. ABX lack of an effective sales force didn't help matters much either.

About your "panzers coming over the hill" metaphor: As I recall, prior to DHL buyout of Airborne Freight in 2003, ABX had 17% of the US express freight market, DHL Airways 2%. I seem to recall that DHL scope suit sought to have all domestic DHL flying done by Astar, including the ~ 116 aircraft fleet routes that ABX bought to the table. All that was going to be transferred to the ~ 40 aircraft Airways/Astar fleet. Vote ourselves out of our jobs, no thanks.

Any way you slice it, the DHL debacle was bad for both pilot groups with DHL royally screwing up their entry into the US market. They went from having turn key access to ~19% of the US express market in 2003, declining to 9% in 2007 (due to operational screwups), to retreating back to their pre merger footprint in 2008 - 2009 time frame. That is one turd that I won't even try to polish.