Can COVID-19 Kill A Carrier?
 

With the stock market in a free fall and the goods coming out of China slowed to a trickle, is this the recipe for the thinning out of cargo carriers, CEOs using this as an excuse to downsize or eliminate?? Just a question!

It's a pretty dumb question.

Thats a pretty dumb answer, with Atlas bleeding financially and labor issues, ABX has labor issues, and some of the smaller carriers not diversified enough, there is a real possibility that management could use the pandemic as a way to restructure and or eliminate problematic or unprofitable elements of their organizations. It has been done in the past on the pax side of the house..

I thought cargo companies were thriving relatively speaking.

AAWW was up 4.5% today on twice its normal volume. Pretty impressive when the S&P was down 10.9%.

Clearly the big money does not agree with your hypothesis. Perhaps because air freight rates out of China have tripled.

Whoever told you loads out of China are down is lying to you.

Hong Kong Quarantine
 

Just breaking this morning. Hong Kong will quarantine ALL arrivals from abroad for 14 days. There's no mention in the article of exemptions for flight crew, although that has been the case so far in many places.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51921515

Flight crews have been exempt from quarantine in HKG since all this craziness started a couple months ago.

It could but I think the pax carriers would go first... This thing is supposedly winding down in China so they'll be going back to work soon. There will be enough cargo to keep everyone afloat and when this ends I bet we're all going to be getting paid to fly extra...

We are slammed. To much work, not enough planes or pilots. This to shall pass. Ride the wide.

Freight prices are very high and all-cargo carriers are thriving. It's quite the opposite you seem to believe.

Apparently we have moved more freight so far this month than we did all of December. I’m very happy to be a freight dog night now.

Thanking my lucky stars man. So lucky right now.

It just killed Sunwing in Canada. 470 pilots out of work this morning.

Fedex managed to INCREASE revenue Q3, which included February, when China was already locked down. Just like Fedex, Brown loads have been normal or higher in most routes. Most people don’t realize airlines move about 30% of all cargo in their bellies. That’s a lot of capacity that needs to be picked up by others, hence our windfall.

Just a word of caution freight dog friends. If the virus gets loose amongst crews the airlines may have freight to carry but soon either won't have pilots to fly the planes or possibly be allowed by governments to move them. I'm cautiously optimistic about our industry withstanding this crisis but we are not bullet proof.

amen brother

Atlas is currently pulling 4 747 freighters out of the desert...think they were parked after Xmas peak...

source please

Nothing official from the company...
...
and, Talked to Southern crew yesterday. They said Southern is trying to add one 777 freighter to the schedule next month.

actually, JD just said on Tuesday’s web call that there are currently no plans to bring the BCFs out of storage.

Sounds like my info was bad. I didn't understand how we could crew any more aircraft...doesn't seem like we have enough for the airframes we are flying now...

No plans to execute is correct, but they have obviously kept it in their sights as the momentum of cargo requirements increases due to the outbreak impacts and lack of pax carrier belly cargo availability. It was verbally stated they are monitoring the situation as they know they can pull them out if needed. Some immediately available, others with a little more lead time. At this time customer needs are being met.

Crews, that would be a concern.

If you got your false info from a certain someone on GC then you should’ve known better to trust his info as it is almost always false.

We can’t handle all the flying. Not enough crews- we probably need another 25% ASAP, and our training dept isn’t able to handle that.

Crews self quarantining, and be locked down doesn’t help their situation either.

More planes, sure- but that equals much more crews- maybe even 3x than normal.

IMO company needs a CBA even more- to motivate the crews.

might not have the crews at the moment but there are more than likely about 800 new apps that just dropped in Atlas' lap in the last week since TSA and Compass both announced they are shutting down the beginning of April. I know hiring and training will take a while but if demand stays high i'm sure the classes at Atlas will start filling up.

P.S. check you PM if you have a minute for a question.

I’d come to ATI rather than Atlas, Brown, purple right now.

Wasn't April Fool's yesterday?

But 4/20 is just around the corner....

Well played. "Duuuuuuuude, we're TOTALLY gettin bought by AM-azon."

Youll see some passenger carriers die, i think cargo will survive this.
I'm taking bets, I say the following carriers will die.
1. Allegeant
2. Frontier
3. Spirit

The big 3 will be much smaller than they are now. But that's a given.

The ignorant leading the blind, No one knows.

Dah! That's why its a bet!!!

Allegiant maybe.
Frontier less likely.
Spirit survives.

Hard to know how a psychological problem will affect the industry. The virus is one thing, the psychological impact is another. Spirits typical low income / low IQ customer base will probably be the first to spring back. Business customers day by day are getting more comfortable with teleconferencing and realizing the cost savings.
When things first open up, y'all better hope there isn't a second wave that develops. The biased news media will create mass hysteria over it simply because of who's in the White House.

I was thinking Spirit buys one of the other two

The other is Sun Country just got an exemption allowing them to cancel most of their flights and keep the stimulus money. I could see Allegiant getting a similar waiver for most of their flying as well.

So Spirit wanted a waiver on operating flights during this ordeal. Their business model has been to look at the legacy carriers most profitable routes and just go into one of the hubs and operate point to point on those select routes. Routes, mind you that were cultivated over a period of decades. They are by their very nature, redundant and non-essential. Now that times are tough, they no longer want to operate those routes? GMAFB. Completely unnecessary airline and should be left to survive on their own.
Ive heard AMR was struggling. Just finished this month’s Airways article in the 90th anniversary of American. The history is amazing and to see that airline go would be a tragedy (like TWA and PAN AM).

I somehow think the flying public these days wouldn't really care if AA went away, except those that live near a major hub. Airlines are their own worst enemy, how they treat their customers.

AMR - classic American is gone. It America West.

I don’t think the government is going to allow one of the “Big 3” remaining legacies to fail. They may assume some manner of “public ownership” etc but not fail. They aren’t going to let some of the nations largest metropolitan areas (CLT, DFW, MIA, PHX and to an extent DCA) lose their largest carrier. Especially at a time when there simply aren’t any other carriers that could come in and fill that big of a void at the moment.