Furloughs coming to Atlas
07-22-2019, 11:01 AM
#193
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2013
Position: Doing Just Fine
Posts: 356
Originally Posted by Lockheed
I think he ment to say 747-400
The 777’s are their replacement
The 777’s are their replacement
07-22-2019, 12:27 PM
#194
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2014
Position: Semi-Retired...
Posts: 3,127
Originally Posted by wjcandee
Agreed they wouldn't want to have to deal directly with a pilot union. The way to avoid that is to not own/operate an airline, because Amazon has no choice whatsoever as to whether pilots at an airline they started from scratch can/will unionize. It would 100-percent happen within the first 5 years. And there's no way Amazon could ever think that they could treat their pilots "well enough" to avoid unionization. JetBlue was giving their pilots daily BJs, and they still ended up with a union. My own feeling is that for safety and other reasons, airline management is always better off in the Big Picture to have a pilot union on their property.
Amazon has been publicly-indicating that it wants Atlas to resolve its labor issues, and is willing to start moving planes if they don't. It's the opposite of what you're saying. That Atlas continues to screw around actually shows that it is not directly a tool of Amazon.
A lot of those folks are in maintenance, etc., insofar as Amazon is now a substantial lessee of aircraft. Those folks are also experts in sorting hub operations, something that Amazon is going to be doing a lot of itself. But no question that in order to purchase transportation effectively/efficiently, they hired people who understand airline operations. They did the same thing with railroad operations people, specifically related to TOFC, but I don't expect them to be buying and taking over the Union Pacific.
What leg each airline handles is something they can and should choose. The structure of the network, ditto. I'm dubious that Amazon is telling specific pilots that they can/can't load specific amounts of extra fuel. General fuel-loading policies are, of course, a big deal throughout the airline industry worldwide, as they have been for over a decade. As the party paying for the fuel, I'm not surprised that Amazon might engage on the issue, but it's hard to imagine them getting involved on the granular per-flight level, and I believe that that would be improper. Sounds like this is something that has been misconstrued, but I of course don't know.
I'm not sure the significance of this. And ATSG has 22 767s plus spares, rising to a total of 30. ATSG was the initial collaborator on the whole "private network" thing, and runs the ground side for now, with Amazon starting to run certain sort operations.
By itself, I don't see anything pernicious about the structure of the CMI contracts. (The retention agreements are another thing.) Any CMI contract with anyone is going to have a termination-for-convenience clause, and 6 months is a typical time. Some have shorter notice periods. ATSG has the same thing. Leases typically do not have such clauses, because the lessor is taking on a substantial capital investment to service the contract. However, the guaranteed lease period is typically shorter than the outside time period that the lessee may want the aircraft; usually long enough for the lessor to recoup its investment. After that, there are options for the lessee to extend the term, and anyone can always voluntarily renegotiate the terms. Amazon has already extended the leases on the CAM (ATSG) 767-200s.
The deal is that Atlas is and should be incentivized to reliably-operate the aircraft under pain of the lessee getting someone else to operate them. That's standard. In any event, a scope clause isn't going to preclude a lessee from placing the aircraft elsewhere, because it's not Atlas's aircraft to place. If you want to encourage Amazon to lease their aircraft from a neutral third party (like GECAS) instead Titan/Andromeda, etc., try to mess with the lessee's ability to get anyone it wants to operate its planes. Amazon's 737F leases are from GECAS. That's likely because GECAS is getting into that business in a big way because it has existing 737-800 feedstock coming off lease that it can convert, but I don't think it helps to give GECAS another marketing angle with Amazon. Ironically, it's that ability to move aircraft that Amazon is using to put pressure on Atlas to make a deal with the pilots. All that said, there is always a chance that the AAWW executives may be being encouraged by Wall Street douchebags to "unlock the value" of AAWW by disintegrating, and selling off the leasing subsidiaries, but it likely has little to do with Amazon.
Well, the best way to make a small fortune in the airline business is to start with a big one. Is Amazon leadership that stupid? I doubt it, but who knows. I don't make the connections that you do with the timing of the new hub. The lease and operation agreements were developed at a time that Amazon had no firm plans to operate its own sorting hub. That the Amazon Air experiment has been generally-successful for them, that they accordingly moved from a simple cross-dock operation to a very-big-change/decision to sort individual packages at a hub, and that they quickly outgrew DHL's capabilities are all important factors in that timing. They could have pulled out on the hub idea well into its construction, but haven't.
Maybe. Or pilots could look at this as a customer that will end up paying for their young kids' college education, provided that they can make a deal with the a-hole management of their airline. This important customer has, publicly at least, advocated for that airline to get its employee-relations house in order. Vilifying a single customer that has less leverage than AMC does isn't necessarily the most-effective strategy. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn't. Maybe this works when the labor pool is relatively-uneducated, but pilots in general are smart people with an active interest and understanding of their employer's business, and in the same boat in many ways. I think that it's probably more-accurate to view Amazon as a knowledgeable arms-length consumer of Atlas's services than a co-conspirator in an effort to screw employees.
That Amazon is so-actively-involved in designing its network and monitoring its operation might actually be a good thing, because it is keenly-aware on a daily basis of the ability of Atlas to carry out its contract, immediately aware of the direct effect of the current tightness in the pilot labor market on Atlas's ability to staff its operations with suitably-competent pilots. And it is of course aware of the fact that Atlas crashed one of Amazon's leased planes, after a year or so of concerning operational incidents involving new pilots. For me, that bent aircraft at PSM was a huge red flag that the whole world could see, but a lot of Atlas people at the time, frankly, poo-pooed it. It will be interesting to see how the NTSB fits it into the overall picture. We're hearing that Southern is having a raft of these kinds of things, although none have been dramatic enough yet to burble to the surface. Lets hope that AAWW gets its house in order before one does, or some government entity is going to make them do so in a way that is going to be painful for the pilots as well.
Amazon has been publicly-indicating that it wants Atlas to resolve its labor issues, and is willing to start moving planes if they don't. It's the opposite of what you're saying. That Atlas continues to screw around actually shows that it is not directly a tool of Amazon.
A lot of those folks are in maintenance, etc., insofar as Amazon is now a substantial lessee of aircraft. Those folks are also experts in sorting hub operations, something that Amazon is going to be doing a lot of itself. But no question that in order to purchase transportation effectively/efficiently, they hired people who understand airline operations. They did the same thing with railroad operations people, specifically related to TOFC, but I don't expect them to be buying and taking over the Union Pacific.
What leg each airline handles is something they can and should choose. The structure of the network, ditto. I'm dubious that Amazon is telling specific pilots that they can/can't load specific amounts of extra fuel. General fuel-loading policies are, of course, a big deal throughout the airline industry worldwide, as they have been for over a decade. As the party paying for the fuel, I'm not surprised that Amazon might engage on the issue, but it's hard to imagine them getting involved on the granular per-flight level, and I believe that that would be improper. Sounds like this is something that has been misconstrued, but I of course don't know.
I'm not sure the significance of this. And ATSG has 22 767s plus spares, rising to a total of 30. ATSG was the initial collaborator on the whole "private network" thing, and runs the ground side for now, with Amazon starting to run certain sort operations.
By itself, I don't see anything pernicious about the structure of the CMI contracts. (The retention agreements are another thing.) Any CMI contract with anyone is going to have a termination-for-convenience clause, and 6 months is a typical time. Some have shorter notice periods. ATSG has the same thing. Leases typically do not have such clauses, because the lessor is taking on a substantial capital investment to service the contract. However, the guaranteed lease period is typically shorter than the outside time period that the lessee may want the aircraft; usually long enough for the lessor to recoup its investment. After that, there are options for the lessee to extend the term, and anyone can always voluntarily renegotiate the terms. Amazon has already extended the leases on the CAM (ATSG) 767-200s.
The deal is that Atlas is and should be incentivized to reliably-operate the aircraft under pain of the lessee getting someone else to operate them. That's standard. In any event, a scope clause isn't going to preclude a lessee from placing the aircraft elsewhere, because it's not Atlas's aircraft to place. If you want to encourage Amazon to lease their aircraft from a neutral third party (like GECAS) instead Titan/Andromeda, etc., try to mess with the lessee's ability to get anyone it wants to operate its planes. Amazon's 737F leases are from GECAS. That's likely because GECAS is getting into that business in a big way because it has existing 737-800 feedstock coming off lease that it can convert, but I don't think it helps to give GECAS another marketing angle with Amazon. Ironically, it's that ability to move aircraft that Amazon is using to put pressure on Atlas to make a deal with the pilots. All that said, there is always a chance that the AAWW executives may be being encouraged by Wall Street douchebags to "unlock the value" of AAWW by disintegrating, and selling off the leasing subsidiaries, but it likely has little to do with Amazon.
Well, the best way to make a small fortune in the airline business is to start with a big one. Is Amazon leadership that stupid? I doubt it, but who knows. I don't make the connections that you do with the timing of the new hub. The lease and operation agreements were developed at a time that Amazon had no firm plans to operate its own sorting hub. That the Amazon Air experiment has been generally-successful for them, that they accordingly moved from a simple cross-dock operation to a very-big-change/decision to sort individual packages at a hub, and that they quickly outgrew DHL's capabilities are all important factors in that timing. They could have pulled out on the hub idea well into its construction, but haven't.
Maybe. Or pilots could look at this as a customer that will end up paying for their young kids' college education, provided that they can make a deal with the a-hole management of their airline. This important customer has, publicly at least, advocated for that airline to get its employee-relations house in order. Vilifying a single customer that has less leverage than AMC does isn't necessarily the most-effective strategy. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn't. Maybe this works when the labor pool is relatively-uneducated, but pilots in general are smart people with an active interest and understanding of their employer's business, and in the same boat in many ways. I think that it's probably more-accurate to view Amazon as a knowledgeable arms-length consumer of Atlas's services than a co-conspirator in an effort to screw employees.
That Amazon is so-actively-involved in designing its network and monitoring its operation might actually be a good thing, because it is keenly-aware on a daily basis of the ability of Atlas to carry out its contract, immediately aware of the direct effect of the current tightness in the pilot labor market on Atlas's ability to staff its operations with suitably-competent pilots. And it is of course aware of the fact that Atlas crashed one of Amazon's leased planes, after a year or so of concerning operational incidents involving new pilots. For me, that bent aircraft at PSM was a huge red flag that the whole world could see, but a lot of Atlas people at the time, frankly, poo-pooed it. It will be interesting to see how the NTSB fits it into the overall picture. We're hearing that Southern is having a raft of these kinds of things, although none have been dramatic enough yet to burble to the surface. Lets hope that AAWW gets its house in order before one does, or some government entity is going to make them do so in a way that is going to be painful for the pilots as well.
Amazon was pressured and shamed into making a statement. Do you really think they’re going to say; “AAWW is unfair and should do what the pilots say.”
They could have simply said, “We have full confidence in AAWW management to do what is in the best interest of their shareholders, their customers, and their employees.”
Instead they made a feel good statement that looks good in the media yet really has no implications at all. It was PR.
I could see down the road, Amazon taking controlling interest in several ACMI operations. Prime is just their brand.
07-22-2019, 04:27 PM
#195
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2013
Position: Captain
Posts: 130
Originally Posted by Cujo665
When I was involved in contracts, I hated it when guys took what management said publicly and believed it. Worse was when they went on social media doing the companies work for them. Look at the track record before blindly gobbling their goo. Both Amazon and AAWW have a long record of screwing over their employees.
It’s unfortunate, this could be one of the best jobs in aviation but they’ve taken the opposite path.
Amazon is a match made in heaven for AAWH when it comes to employee relations, pay and benefits.
07-22-2019, 09:15 PM
#196
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2018
Position: MEM HSBY
Posts: 166
Originally Posted by Turbine1
Good discussion. In dealing with Atlas for well over a decade I’ve learned if something costs the company money even a tiny amount, they do not hesitate to take it off the backs of the pilots. This isn’t an airline, it’s a leasing company run by lawyers, MBAs and bean counters for aircraft and the pilots to operate them. Aircrew here are a line item to be controlled and minimized down to the lowest possible portion on their balance sheet. If they could delete that line item ( Pilots ) profitably they would do it without question and with about as much thought as hitting that key on your keyboard.
It’s unfortunate, this could be one of the best jobs in aviation but they’ve taken the opposite path.
Amazon is a match made in heaven for AAWH when it comes to employee relations, pay and benefits.
It’s unfortunate, this could be one of the best jobs in aviation but they’ve taken the opposite path.
Amazon is a match made in heaven for AAWH when it comes to employee relations, pay and benefits.
07-28-2019, 10:50 AM
#197
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Apr 2016
Posts: 698
Ok. Union and Company meet this week. I’ve heard the company and union have agreed to language regarding DH’s. This is really good. I’d say 3-4 more years we will
Have the baby swaddled up nice and tight.
Have the baby swaddled up nice and tight.
07-29-2019, 06:24 AM
#199
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2011
Posts: 307
A4A had an article today on Atlas's future plans. Atlas is building a new facility in northern Kentucky close to the CVC facility and is to house operations and dispatch and is to open next year. What it means I have no idea but it is dis-concerning if you are an Atlas pilot
07-29-2019, 07:53 AM
#200
Tuk er jerbs!
Joined APC: Mar 2007
Position: B747 Left
Posts: 1,342
The idea that Amazon is going to acquire part of Atlas without the pilots, start its own airline, and materialize 1000+ pilots to staff it is downright silly.
Amazon is all about being the best and fastest in the e-commerce game, and suddenly shutting down its own lift to restart it all without pilots is a great way to torque off millions of customers.
Could they acquire the airline? Absolutely. In fact, I personally expect it at some point. Would they acquire the airplanes and start a non-union alter-ego carrier in the middle of the biggest pilot shortage in decades, just to screw Atlas pilots? Come on, now.
Amazon is all about being the best and fastest in the e-commerce game, and suddenly shutting down its own lift to restart it all without pilots is a great way to torque off millions of customers.
Could they acquire the airline? Absolutely. In fact, I personally expect it at some point. Would they acquire the airplanes and start a non-union alter-ego carrier in the middle of the biggest pilot shortage in decades, just to screw Atlas pilots? Come on, now.
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