Today, one year ago, was the last flight of Kitty Hawk Aircargo. The last 727 was flown to Ardmore, OK on 09JAN2008.

The beginning was light aircraft 135 in Texas in the late '70's, progressing through DC-3's, Super DC-3's, Convairs, turbine Convairs, Falcons(?), DC-9's, to B-727's and B737's. 727's were on long-term contracts at one time as far afield as Caracas, Manila, and Auckland. KHA had 405 pilots on the list at the peak.

The company grew up under one man with a vision - but it foundered on the ill-advised aquisition of AIA in 1997, finally staggering into bankruptcy in 2000. (Although acquisition of the old nationwide Zantop/AIA freight system allowed the company to survive.)

We lost a third of our work when BAX, in a self-preservation move, awarded our ACMI contract to CCI. Another third of our flying went away with the disastrous cancellation of all US Postal flying contracts, and handing of a no-bid award to a sole-source contractor. Kitty Hawk pilots got a union contract and merged with ALPA.

KHA survived, and carried-on until October 2007 when the Kitty Hawk Cargo system was shut down. A rump-KHA ACMI'd with 737's at DHL/Wilmington in Xmas 2007, and the 727 horse charter operated until January 2008.

I guess you could say that Kitty Hawk was the fleet-leader into chapter 7 in that terrible year of 2008. (or the canary in the coal mine)

It was the best job I ever had, fine people, great schedule, pleasant management, ten years.....KHA R.I.P....

 

I flew their last DC-3,way back in '91,based out of KYIP, before they sold it to IFL group, I still remember shooting approaches into the Sierra Madre at night in weather,to places like Cuidad Victoria,and Monterrey, a great education,that I was glad to survive ! I had a few friends who were there till the bitter end, my memories of KHawk are fond ones....

 

I flew the Beech 99 Airliner out of ELP-ROS-LBB-ABI and back, every night for five nights a week, four weeks a month, for a long time it seemed ............................... Load and unload the plane yourself, we blocked out of ELP from the old CUTTER BEECHCRAFT FBO around 7 p.m., back in the chocks by 6 a.m., the next morning. The old BE-99A had a B wing conversion and it belonged to CHAPARRAL AIRLINES out of ABI ............... ate up Starter Generators about every two or three nights ! I got the job after doing Flight Instruction and Charters .................... what a row to hoe !!!
Oh yea, got paid $750 per month ........................ 1982 dollars !!!

 

Everyone at Kitty Hawk really gave me a chance, it was a great airline. I hated to see such a great group lose their home.

 

Yeah, there was a DA-20 for a while, 202KH. There never was a chapter 7 filing, the chapter 11 reorganization plan was liquidation.

 

Kitty Hawk was sort of a Greek tragedy. When I started there the prop/jet mix was 1 to 1. They were profitable and I am pretty sure owned all of their planes outright. Everyone was happy even though the pay sucked and they worked you to death - or should I say the pay sucked UNLESS they worked you to death. And you didn't mind this because they treated you well, worked with you when you needed time off, and had a great attitude when it came to moving on to bigger and better things. It was a big family. They happily hired every furloughed pilot they could find knowing they would leave in a few years but many deferred their recall so KHA could get some more time out of them. We all gave 110%. I really thought the place was an up and comer. And I thought founder/owner Tom Christopher was a genius.

And then they bought AIA.

That's one of those moments where you remember where you were when you heard it. Like the Challenger disaster or 9/11. That moment I knew KHA was doomed. Then things began to change. The profit sharing checks went away. The attitudes changed. Management became hostile. There was the fears and concerns about a merger of the pilot groups. KHA started losing money.

Another one of those "I remember where I was" days was St. Patrick's Day 1999. KHA had just prior decided to pass on an aquisition of a large number of 727s (I believe in Italy) due to corrosion. They had hired in anticipation of these planes and now had too many pilots. Some (expletive deleted) told them not to furlough because the furloughees will have antimocity to the company so FIRE them instead. On St. Pat's Day the first round of terminations hit. They called around 15 pilots back to DFW, my over 60 FE was one of them, and showed them the door. These were people "they didn't like." The rest, I want to say 35, were the bottom seniority FEs. They let them finish out the week and then fired them on Saturday - not furloughed but fired. They skipped over 727 FOs and DC-9 FOs by seniority. That was it for me and I left soon after.

I believe this incident was the catalyst for the forming of a union at KHA, along with the perception there would be a merger with AIA. The formation of the Kitty Hawk Pilots Association is a fantastic David vs. Goliath story but by the time it happened I was gone. Please somebody tell this story, it is fabulous.

g