Originally Posted by
4dalulz
So the bottom line is one government program went away because the government no longer needs it and they're trying to replace that flying with other government flying? And this is why the place is falling apart? Omni (by extension of ATSGs actions) became poorly positioned in the market and caught in a cycle of inability to reinvest in it's products (fear of growth, fear of any outlay beyond core maintenance, an overriding need to line the pockets of investors to keep the poor poor in the name of freedumbz - it's the ATSG way) - that can be overcome with time and more competent management (at all levels)... whether Omni will or won't remains to be seen. But your airline is not going to be having a "going out of business" sale because it lost one or two flights a week.
Over the years as I have heard, that program was the "cash cow" of Omni. They claimed each flight brought in so much revenue that if all other flying would go away, the place would continue to operate normally. If you ask me, I believe it brought in a great amaohnt of revenue, but not that much. Before the fallout of a certain region in the Middle East a few years back, the program was running 3 flights a week, with 3 airplanes, one standby in the states and one standby in EU. Since that all crumbled, the program has been down to 1 flight a week and one backup tail. So with that being said, I can't imagine that program, with 1-3 airplanes bringing in so much revenue that it craps on the other eight/nine 767s and three 777s, before & after the reduction of flying in 2021.
Either way, Omni will need to find business elsewhere to make up for the slack now that the program is going away. I don't see this wiping the place out completely but it's certainly not something to be jumping up and down about. It certainly has the capability of changing the structure of the airline as a whole, as the supposed "relying-revenues" are not coming into Tulsa. I do stand corrected, but the revenues from the program that started in 2014 may have played big role for the first CBA shortly after, in 2018.
This will unfortunately play a big role at the bargaining table. Any momentum that there may have been, is probably all gone now. The place will probably be over staffed for a while, with who knows, the possibility of unpaid leaves/furloughs being mentioned, as we have seen several times over the years. It will be an interesting 6-12 months coming up but I can't imagine interesting in a good way.