baldwin

ABX pilots kicked customers in the nuts... seriously? How about holding ABX management accountable for not being able to adequately staff and run their operation? Any union pilot
should be cheering for what 1224 was able to accomplish.

l8fr82hub

Yes, they targeted Amazon and DHL freight instead of the routes that ABX flew. The service ABX pilots provide is moving the airplanes on the routes ABX Air is contracted to fly for those customers, not the freight itself. They chose instead to target the major hubs of both customers and to prevent those customers from moving their freight. Why wouldn't those customers be really f-ing ****ed at the ABX pilots?! It cost them millions!

DC8DRIVER

Per instructions from 1224, only the CVG and ILN hubs were being picketed. Flying at other stations was not restricted. It was a strategic move targeting the critical hubs and it was a successful tactic.



The scabs were the ones that crossed the lines in CVG and ILN. There is no confusion about that point.

We should all hope there will be long term repercussions. That is the idea. Change only happens when there is some pain in the boardroom.

If you are insinuating that this move was done by DW soley for the benefit of Atlas pilots, you are out of touch with the situation over at ABX and the 1224 carriers in CVG. Best not to speak about that which you do not know.

8

CTRCommander

That's overlooked way too often.. been there.


Company said we will be "fully deployed" next week. I'm not sure what that means. Normal schedules? Above normal? Heading back to the K hotel? Don't know.




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EXPAT1

Any news on Hete trying to shift future growth planned for ABX over to ATI? This will have to be carefully monitored or the ATSG cronies will attempt to punish ABX and reward ATI for this strike. Another tell tale sign will be how serious management is at completing a new contract for ABX. If they continue to stall and not get serious then clearly they have ulterior motives and plans.

filejw

I would be more worried about Amazon than anything. They are ruthless from what I read and will not like having the operation interrupted.

Ejected

I'm guessing they'll try to shift new airframe arrivals into ATI's side, although they won't be able to shift them all. Amazon has been pumping more hours every month into the current fleet, so the growth is not limited to the arrival of new airframes only. Shifting all "new flying" to ATI could make them choke, and could really take a toll on performance (read revenue) for ATSG.

Even if ATI gets more airframes than ABX, at some point ATSG will violate their contract and force them into unreasonable overtime (read free overtime). If ATI wants to do something about it......well.... you guess it, ATSG will take those airplanes away from them. And so the neverending whipsawing game continues on.

This won't stop until we get a single certificate or at least the same union.

One thing that really made DHL and Amazon think really hard was that Atlas and Kalitta stood beside ABX. It's not so simple to mess with these "little company". And for that, we're extremely thankful to Atlas and Kalitta.

wjcandee

Well, that's basically five more aircraft, arriving on average every 42 days through mid-2017. Right now, Amazon has a contract with ABX and a contract with ATI, each for the operation of 10 aircraft. It is dry-leasing 20 aircraft from CAM. Each operating contract is terminable by Amazon for convenience (meaning without need to give a reason) on 180-days' notice. So, as a practical matter, the customer has the ability to choose what airline will operate any particular one of its aircraft.

The 12 767-200s called for by the contracts are currently in operation. Amazon has begun the process of painting some of those in Prime Air colors and reregistering them with an "AZ" tail number. (768ax has been repainted and will be reregistered 191az, for example.)

That leaves the 8 767-300s. Two of those are currently being operated by ATI. The one that is in paint at KGUS is allocated to ABX. That leaves 2 more for ATI and 3 more for ABX. Those five aircraft are due to be completed and inducted by July 2017. When all those aircraft are in operation, it will be clear if any changes were made. Before then, it might be hard to tell.

Assuming that Amazon lets bygones be bygones, CAM has a lot more than five 767-300s in line for conversion, although they are technically all allocated to non-Amazon customers. However, if Amazon wants to continue to grow quickly with ABX beyond the 3 more aircraft, those are obviously aircraft about which CAM, Amazon, and the current customer could make a deal to reallocate to Amazon for operation by ABX. The rest of the Titan Leasing/Atlas aircraft are scheduled roughly for mid-2017 through end-2018.

Atlas is going to have a challenging-enough time bringing 19 aircraft into the network in 18 months that it's hard to imagine that they would be banging on the door trying to take all the Amazon flying from ABX and ATI. On the other hand, that might be exactly what they are doing. They haven't been shy about taking away ABX's DHL flying, nor does anybody working there seem to feel bad about it.

qiutong

I have a good friend in upper level maintenance management for Atlas, and he's told me that the ABX air maintenance reps have been pulled out of Israel's IAI and that the remaining conversions will be going to ATI. That would fit with their rumored plans to be hiring a lot of pilots. Pretty sad that the whipsawing shamelessly continues......

wjcandee

For what it's worth, there are some details of this that sound a little off, or maybe the conclusion is not quite right. For example, all the aircraft being converted are owned by CAM. CAM has a lot of aircraft in the pipeline for conversion at IAI/Bedek, more than half of which will not be going to either ABX or ATI. Right now, ABX and ATI are actually each operating essentially the same number of aircraft for the Amazon assignment, and the next 767-300 is in paint and is expected to go onto the ABX certificate. I guess there will be a hint by Wednesday as to whether there will be any whipsawing.