From the outside looking in and from the talk of our pilot group....they consistantly step on themselves....what gives???? How can u be a world wide leader in shipping and have a track record like this???? Maybe they need to make all the airplanes yellow (Astar/ABX) make the people yellow and the paychecks yellow so at least the folks doing the work could take pride in their company. I could see where nobody has any loyaltly to DHL cause they dont own anything. Plus they cancel you at the drop of the hat!! At least when the shipping label is brown/purple the same folks that handled the package wore the same uniform. (By the way u purple guys ripped the S___ out of box that my boating toys came in. No foul though the "Sumo tube" made it through fine.:D

What is the deal with your flying? Did they buy part of your company like they did Polar? I'm just trying to compare apples to apples as our deal is supposed to be wrapped up by the end of June.

Thanks in Advance

DHL's collection of air carrier agreements is like a fruit basket in which no two pieces of fruit are alike. I'm afraid there's no like fruit to compare!

Historically, DHL's carriers perform pretty much the same mission or serve the same market segment that they were in before DHL became involved. I recall their stated intention when buying into Polar was to secure lift between Asia and the U.S. From what I've been seeing I would guess DHL needs the equivalent of 1-2 airplanes on those routes right now. That's a guess on my part just from observing what flows into RIV, ILN & JFK. Cathay Pacific, Transmile & NWA are some of the carriers that have provided lift on those routes so far (not necessarily dedicated aircraft).

Growth is always a possibility. DHL wants to grow, of course. Unfortunately a lot of their growth in the last decade has been through acquisition rather than service and marketing. At this end of the acquisitions, they have a whole bunch of pieces to put together. From my perspective it's not a coherent or efficient network. Until they figure out a better overall strategy, I'm not sure there's going to be big opportunities for any of us as individual carriers.

RE: Ownership. As I'm sure you know, DHL is owned by Deutsche Post, a German company. At the time of the Airborne Express buyout 4 years ago, DHL had a stake (I believe 49%) in "DHL Airways". ABX Air was 100% owned by Airborne Express. Partly because of politics, DHL chose to sell DHL Airways to a private investor group (primarily John Dasburg, former CEO of Northwest & Burger King). They are now known as "Astar" and they have an ACMI agreement with DHL. ABX Air became a stand-alone publicly-traded company with an ACMI agreement. ABX also received contracts to operate the U.S. sort hubs. DHL has gradually been taking over management of those hubs.

When DHL bought our company (and spun us off) there was a mix of excitement and cautious optimism. The mood now is complete disappointment. DHL has not been good for Astar or ABX. There's still a chance that things will turn out well, but not if the company continues to conduct it's business as it has in the past. In the meantime, I would advise any pilot for a DHL company to keep their resume up to date.

"DHL's collection of air carrier agreements is like a fruit basket in which no two pieces of fruit are alike."

True. And it appears that DHL is the rottenest fruit in the bunch

"Historically, DHL's carriers perform pretty much the same mission or serve the same market segment that they were in before DHL became involved. I recall their stated intention when buying into Polar was to secure lift between Asia and the U.S. From what I've been seeing I would guess DHL needs the equivalent of 1-2 airplanes on those routes right now. That's a guess on my part just from observing what flows into RIV, ILN & JFK. Cathay Pacific, Transmile & NWA are some of the carriers that have provided lift on those routes so far (not necessarily dedicated aircraft)."

With Lufthansa and NWA flying out of ILN, Kalitta flying out of JFK, and who knows how many others flying core product for our common customer, I think DHL will be able to put as many 74's to work as they have available.

Growth is always a possibility. DHL wants to grow, of course. Unfortunately a lot of their growth in the last decade has been through acquisition rather than service and marketing. At this end of the acquisitions, they have a whole bunch of pieces to put together. From my perspective it's not a coherent or efficient network. Until they figure out a better overall strategy, I'm not sure there's going to be big opportunities for any of us as individual carriers.

Spot on.

"When DHL bought our company (and spun us off) there was a mix of excitement and cautious optimism. The mood now is complete disappointment. DHL has not been good for Astar or ABX. There's still a chance that things will turn out well, but not if the company continues to conduct it's business as it has in the past. In the meantime, I would advise any pilot for a DHL company to keep their resume up to date."

I sure have. My app has been in with brown town since April. In the past month Astar has had about 8 - 10 pilots leave for greener (more intelligent) pastures.

DRIVER