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Atsg incompetence

Old 08-31-2018, 05:30 AM
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Default Atsg incompetence

A letter from JH TO abx capt

, your letter to John Maloney was forwarded to me

That said, I must say that you clearly have some very strong opinions about management as individuals and the thought processes we employ in running the company. Would you care to share with me the basis for these?

I have been with this company coming up on 38 years next month. During that time we have faced many challenges where key decisions had to be made and I can assure you that never once was the basis for those decisions borne of "hatred for the pilots". Were some of those decisions unpopular with the pilots, certainly. But my job isn't to run a popularity contest, it is to make sure that any decision we make takes into account all of our constituencies, shareholders, ALL employees and the community as well.

You ask John many questions about what he is doing or can do to bring ABX back. I would ask you the same question.


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Old 08-31-2018, 05:33 AM
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I apologize for the delay in my reply to you, I was commuting to work from my home outside of Washington DC yesterday. Which brings to mind, first and foremost, one of your management team’s punitive and unfair practices toward ABX Air pilots: our lack of Known Crew Member status (which you do provide to ATI). Why else, but unreasonable distaste, would you cause it to be more difficult for some of your highest paid and most time critical employees to get to work every month?

I do appreciate your response to my letter to Mr. Maloney though it was not expected nor requested. My letter to him was in part related to several conversations John and I have had, one-on-one, in his office. Furthermore, you must excuse me if I am suspicious of your motivations in reply, as in my 23+ years with this company I have only once been asked for my input and then, only recently by John Maloney; rather, historically, quite the opposite has been the rule. You ask me in your closing line what I can do and what I am doing to bring ABX back. First, I’m not sure it can be brought back from where it has been allowed to fall, but beyond such evaluation, I have done all this company has asked of me to the best of my ability for my entire tenure. I have endured the same ups and downs you speak of but at a much more operational level versus your strategic level. While at this company, I have been surplussed from a captain position, furloughed entirely for eighteen months, taken pay cuts, been harassed by members of your management team (see HR for details), overcome antiquated and sometimes barbaric training methods and yet I remain, despite opportunities to go elsewhere. Secondly, I have offered my services to this company many times and been rebuked every time. I offered to become a standards pilot, I offered to help with Safety (as I was a Chief of Safety in the Air Force), I attempted to assist with attaining what this company erroneously calls CRAF flying and most recently I offered, Mr Soaper and Mr Maloney individually, the use of my extensive training and experience as an operational and strategic level planner to overcome the scheduling difficulties we have month after month. My impression has always been that your management team’s desire is for the pilots in general and myself in particular to simply acquiesce to whatever demands are placed on us. There is a lot of broad and valuable education, training and experience in this pilot group which goes apparently intentionally unresourced.

Let’s talk about what your management has done to ABX Air, the community, its shareholders and its employees, including the pilots: you have taken away what were our aircraft, our maintenance, our flight control then promptly charged ABX for the use of those same resources at artificially high rates. We pay some of the highest lease rates in the industry on the very aircraft you simply took from us. While I realize this is all done internally using ATSG dollars and not real money, it allows the less savvy to claim and believe ABX is far less profitable and valuable than it in fact is. You lease aircraft to our direct competitors and use our mechanics to maintain them. While others may believe dry leasing is more profitable than ACMI, I do not! Perhaps the profit margin is higher because your unit costs are lower, but the overall profit is higher with ACMI because you make a profit on each letter therein! If that were not the case, you would have shutdown both ABX and ATI long ago. As I stated in my letter to John, once we were mentioned in the same breath as FedEx and UPS. Now, after your accession to the top post, we are losing valuable assets and work to the likes of Kalitta, Atlas, ATI, Omni, NAC and the regionals! I’m not talking solely about pilots: Forsythe, Woodford, schedulers, loadmasters, and many others. We have fallen to the bottom of the ACMI scum bucket! It is clear to me, we are not even attempting to compete: in Miami, Los Angeles, or Europe; or for military charters. I personally saw a letter where UPS asked us to fly four trips for them last fourth quarter out of Köln and Miami, your management declined! The national economy and air freight business is better than it has been in decades, yet here we sit: shrinking and withering on the vine. How many more millions could you have earned for the shareholders, if we actually pursued or just accepted business opportunities now available to us. If at least some of these business decisions were not done out of hatred for the pilots, I fear far worse causality exists. Thousands of former Airborne Express employees nationwide lost their jobs, the city and community of Wilmington have been financially harmed severely, not once but twice in the last ten years, were you not at the helm for each and every one of those ten years? How much personal loss did you assume? How does your income compare today with 2008?
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Old 08-31-2018, 07:19 AM
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Bravo......good on ya.
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Old 08-31-2018, 08:54 AM
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Originally Posted by JustOvIt View Post
I apologize for the delay in my reply to you, I was commuting to work from my home outside of Washington DC yesterday. Which brings to mind, first and foremost, one of your management team’s punitive and unfair practices toward ABX Air pilots: our lack of Known Crew Member status (which you do provide to ATI). Why else, but unreasonable distaste, would you cause it to be more difficult for some of your highest paid and most time critical employees to get to work every month?

I do appreciate your response to my letter to Mr. Maloney though it was not expected nor requested. My letter to him was in part related to several conversations John and I have had, one-on-one, in his office. Furthermore, you must excuse me if I am suspicious of your motivations in reply, as in my 23+ years with this company I have only once been asked for my input and then, only recently by John Maloney; rather, historically, quite the opposite has been the rule. You ask me in your closing line what I can do and what I am doing to bring ABX back. First, I’m not sure it can be brought back from where it has been allowed to fall, but beyond such evaluation, I have done all this company has asked of me to the best of my ability for my entire tenure. I have endured the same ups and downs you speak of but at a much more operational level versus your strategic level. While at this company, I have been surplussed from a captain position, furloughed entirely for eighteen months, taken pay cuts, been harassed by members of your management team (see HR for details), overcome antiquated and sometimes barbaric training methods and yet I remain, despite opportunities to go elsewhere. Secondly, I have offered my services to this company many times and been rebuked every time. I offered to become a standards pilot, I offered to help with Safety (as I was a Chief of Safety in the Air Force), I attempted to assist with attaining what this company erroneously calls CRAF flying and most recently I offered, Mr Soaper and Mr Maloney individually, the use of my extensive training and experience as an operational and strategic level planner to overcome the scheduling difficulties we have month after month. My impression has always been that your management team’s desire is for the pilots in general and myself in particular to simply acquiesce to whatever demands are placed on us. There is a lot of broad and valuable education, training and experience in this pilot group which goes apparently intentionally unresourced.

Let’s talk about what your management has done to ABX Air, the community, its shareholders and its employees, including the pilots: you have taken away what were our aircraft, our maintenance, our flight control then promptly charged ABX for the use of those same resources at artificially high rates. We pay some of the highest lease rates in the industry on the very aircraft you simply took from us. While I realize this is all done internally using ATSG dollars and not real money, it allows the less savvy to claim and believe ABX is far less profitable and valuable than it in fact is. You lease aircraft to our direct competitors and use our mechanics to maintain them. While others may believe dry leasing is more profitable than ACMI, I do not! Perhaps the profit margin is higher because your unit costs are lower, but the overall profit is higher with ACMI because you make a profit on each letter therein! If that were not the case, you would have shutdown both ABX and ATI long ago. As I stated in my letter to John, once we were mentioned in the same breath as FedEx and UPS. Now, after your accession to the top post, we are losing valuable assets and work to the likes of Kalitta, Atlas, ATI, Omni, NAC and the regionals! I’m not talking solely about pilots: Forsythe, Woodford, schedulers, loadmasters, and many others. We have fallen to the bottom of the ACMI scum bucket! It is clear to me, we are not even attempting to compete: in Miami, Los Angeles, or Europe; or for military charters. I personally saw a letter where UPS asked us to fly four trips for them last fourth quarter out of Köln and Miami, your management declined! The national economy and air freight business is better than it has been in decades, yet here we sit: shrinking and withering on the vine. How many more millions could you have earned for the shareholders, if we actually pursued or just accepted business opportunities now available to us. If at least some of these business decisions were not done out of hatred for the pilots, I fear far worse causality exists. Thousands of former Airborne Express employees nationwide lost their jobs, the city and community of Wilmington have been financially harmed severely, not once but twice in the last ten years, were you not at the helm for each and every one of those ten years? How much personal loss did you assume? How does your income compare today with 2008?
Yeah what he said!
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Old 08-31-2018, 09:38 AM
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You forgot to mention JH’s remark, “ATI, whose pilots did not support the strike, will get the remainder of the Amazon flying.” If that doesn’t show his bias against the ABX pilots, I don’t know what does......
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Old 08-31-2018, 09:55 AM
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Originally Posted by qiutong View Post
You forgot to mention JH’s remark, “ATI, whose pilots did not support the strike, will get the remainder of the Amazon flying.” If that doesn’t show his bias against the ABX pilots, I don’t know what does......
Well ABX pilots opted to go on strike, they had to know there would be consequences. That has nothing to do with hating pilots, just consequences of ABX's choices as a pilot group.

Good letter, btw
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Old 08-31-2018, 09:55 AM
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Outstanding letter!
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Old 08-31-2018, 11:02 AM
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The sad part is the lack of responsibility of the ATSG board of directors.
It’s one thing to hate your pilot group. But it’s another to turn away business. To shrink the business, and to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring and training new hires to see them leave !!
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Old 08-31-2018, 11:07 AM
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And this is the Brutal truth.


Brutally done! Very nice! It won’t matter. He still blames us for the strike... His decisions led to that.... His stubbornness, and intention to “not encourage bad behavior”. Rick and Starky had two separate settlement agreements to prevent that... he over-ruled.. He may never accept his culpability.... nobody at ATSG has ever accepted responsibility for anything. Point fingers and blame... small minds.

Their hatred of us is so universally manifested at every level of the organization that they don’t even recognize it as a primary motive for their stupidity.

The greatest cargo airline opportunity in 40 years, Amazon, falls at their feet, and they fight, and bicker, violate the contract, and try to take more from the pilots! Of course! What should we expect from a management team that has NO VISION!? Have they ever looked forward and projected significant market factors in the past? The pilot shortage was no surprise! Looking forward, having a great contract could ensure ABX’s ability to provide for AMZN but small minded crap contracts, and whip sawing, ensures ATSG’s failure. Our P/E is 60. AAWW’s is 7.... how long after we continue to shrink and lose CMI revenue does ATSG stock dive? It’s very likely a $2.00 stock!

I would have liked you to call out David Soaper! A proven two time loser that couldn’t create a profit with bankruptcy contracts at Comair or Southern. That PUTZ told us in CRM, February 2017, that he doesn’t care if ABX succeeds or fails, because HE gets paid either way! He continues to threaten to shut us down. We have 5 airplanes that are not being utilized (20 % of the fleet). Ridiculous! If you were an uneducated landscaper, common sense wouldn’t let you have 20% of your capital assets sitting idle!

He has no clue about what’s going on in the pilot job front, the quality of the guys we’ve gotten most recently is scary. Atlas just bent an airplane with an incompetent new hire, and its bound to happen here.

It’s obvious that his sole qualification to become airline management was marrying into the Comair (Muller) family. He’s using the same discernment at ABX by hiring friends and family. F.........is a family friend, has multiple alcohol related arrests, and would not even qualify to be a pilot here, because he can’t go to Canada! And he’s telling me what I’m worth?! He’s gonna save the company by taking away my lunch! They have no clue how to run this operation.
Their contract proposals are ridiculous, he’s trying to be a hero, refusing to accept the true costs of the Kalitta contract... fewer days of work a year, lost productivity with home basing, NO JRMing! They have to staff properly (what a concept). Soaper wants to give us Kalitta rates, but nothing else. Greedy, and stupid! We need a contract that can attract and retain pilots. He just doesn’t get it!

The two of them have chased out any talent that we once had. Woodford and Forsyth gone! The best of our new hires gone! The frustration level is demonstrated with our collapsed on-time performance. How the hell is Soaper still employed? Shocking!

You also failed to point out that this pilot group wants nothing more than to be successful, look forward to coming to work, and flying our asses off for a company that appreciates us. It would take very little to change our attitudes toward this place. We still have the express mentality that can wow our customers. Just have to get that jackass out of here. Hete, has the smarts to get it back on track, he just has to stop seeing red, when he looks at the pilots... OH! and merge the dan airlines, and clear out that useless and unsafe ATI culture.
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Old 08-31-2018, 11:24 AM
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“You ask John many questions about what he is doing or can do to bring ABX back. I would ask you the same question.”
Well, let’s start with getting rid of Soaper.
-Failed at Comair and Southern
-threatens to furlough and then wants to blame the pilots for their inability to staff the airline
-surrounds himself with a no-talent management team lacking any leadership skills causing any talented people to leave...and I don’t mean pilots
-says “it doesn’t matter if ABX succeeds or fails, I still get paid” and then in the next breath says they need more productivity out of the pilot contract-Yes, that’s a good approach.
-finally, said fixing maintenance is his priority...OMG, it’s never been this bad in my 25 years with this company.

So let’s start by holding Soaper accountable for his failure to accomplish any positive operational changes
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