Originally Posted by NeverShytoAsk

Based on what one can read in the news, ATSG (Omni’s parent company) was a big and public supporter of the Trump campaign in 2016 and got rewarded nicely with deportation flights and Covid-19 bailout money, even as revenue of the ATSG group increased during the pandemic. Some left leaning media even got into the habit of calling Omni now “The Deportation Airline”.

There is quite some critique in the news and the political left about this, which I personally find not justified. In particular, the claim is that Omni has now pretty much a monopoly on a lot of “high risk” flights with the current government and that contracts are given without sufficient oversight and are being “overpaid”.

No matter if that critique is justified or not, I wonder what happens if Biden wins and the immigration policy makes a 180 turn (no more deportations) and the contracts to fly military personal get shaken up and rewarded and/or paid differently. Based on what ATSG management already said on the last investor call, they already expect a relevant reduction in passenger flights in the second half of 2020.

Does anyone have any insight on this, in particular how diversified Omni is in order stomach expected radical changes under a democratic presidency?

ATSG is much more optimistic about its cargo operation of their other “airlines” ABX and ATI. The natural question to ask is if the pilot groups are completely separate, or is it reasonable to assume that in a worst case scenario some Omni pilots would get “transferred” to the cargo operations?

Originally Posted by Cujo665

Company seems to have done very well under the 8 years of Clinton and the 8 Years of Obama. I think they're blowing smoke up your butt. Omni will be fine. Their stockholders report was very optimistic for all their owned carriers, not just ATI and ABX.

Great first post by the way........

Oh, three separate pilot groups to answer your question.

Originally Posted by NeverShytoAsk

Yes, you and ObadiahDogberry are correct concerning Omni's history under Clinton/Obama. However, please be aware that the massive increase in deportations under Obama was not much politized by the Democrats and mostly muted in the left wing press. Seems a bit different now, as almost the entire political Left and the press agree that deportations are inacceptable.

You are right that the stockholder report was very optimistic, even on the long-term prospects of Omni. However, the CFO mentioned that Omni was able to offset the negative impact on "commercial passenger flying" in the first half with unique opportunities (charters) due to the pandemic, like repatriation-type missions and transporting energy workers. This is now dwindling down. So, there will be an obvious gap to fill until sports teams and vacation travel companies catch up again.
Anyway, my intention is not to sound pessimistic. ATSG (and with it Omni) is in great shape and a fantastic company to work for. I'm just sharing those info as I assume that some pilots are not following investor news in great details, and it always helps to see things in perspective.

Originally Posted by Cujo665

The info from one news article copied and pasted by about three other media sources a few months ago had so many inaccuracies that most of us ignored it. ICE flights are not a large part of the operation. IAero is big on those, not Omni.
You made the comment/theory/insinuation that you didn’t think Omni would fair as well under a Democrat administration. Then when confronted with the facts that we did fine, you admit yes, we were right.

Thanks for sharing (resharing really) articles that were posted here months ago when they were first published.

No planes have been parked
No pilots have been furloughed
A management team that mostly works with us, not against us
No plans to furlough are even being discussed.
A new to us 767 was recently put into service at Omni
Another new to us 767 is on its way this year
In the past two years the 767 fleet will have increased by 33% (Two-thirds of that this year during the pandemic)
New Hire classes slowed but never stopped
New hire classes are continuing to run right now
A new to us training center has recently opened
We continue to interview and hire
The window opened last week for 4 hours. 1200 applications flooded the system.

whatever doom predictions you’ve been reading or hinting at are pure malarkey.

This job is the best kept secret in 121

Originally Posted by CardboardCutout

A flying slowdown might actually be good news for newhire classes. Get some of these guys out of the airplanes and back in the classroom/sim.

I will say that the Sept. bid pack was pretty thin on known flying.

Originally Posted by saxman66

There was a new hire class in July. I've heard they want 30-40 more through the end of the year. Since so many street captains were hired there was a slowdown in FO new hire classes and they are still trying to get those through IOE. Management has seemed to always find flying for us. Fall flying usually gets slow anyway, especially around holidays. Anything could happen though.