Originally Posted by
TransWorld
If the average is so low, do you think they are over staffed, or what do you think the reason is?
It's the nature of the business. Having aircraft and crews available to move at a phone calls notice. Omni does a very good job, maybe the best of any adhoc airline, of keeping metal moving in an efficient manner around the globe. The way the assigned contracts are promised to be fulfilled and the schedules those contracts demand in essence frame the manner in which the aircraft and crews accumulate flight time. Being primarily a human hauling airline also forms these schedules. At someplace like Atlas there is always scheduled and or adhoc cargo to be moved. A lot of times crew planning can successfully shift crews around to match up with an airframe that is moving around the globe in the area doing cargo or people. At omni people go one direction and if there isn't a return load an airplane needs to be repositioned to catch another practical load. That reposition (ferry) either needs to be charged to the customer or if it makes more fiscal sense the airframe and crew sit there for a few days until a return trip is needed. All of this needs to be accomplished inside the rules of FAR 117. Makes it a scheduling and planning puzzle that Omni is very good at but remains a huge challenge.
Also sometimes maybe busy? Sometimes maybe not.