NWA AMS Hub question
 

Hey gang-

I read in one of our DAL Flight Ops bulletins that NWA runs a sort of hub out of AMS. Can anyone elaborate? What equipment? What are the trips like? We briefly ran an FRA hub after the Pan Am deal that involved 727 and some 767 trips with 10 to 12 day trips based there and flying intra-Europe. Same? Different?

Thanks!

Soup

I'll take a stab... with the caveat that I'm on mil leave right now and have never actually done an AMS trip. Just checking the DTW330CA (330A for the DAL guys) bid pack, there are trips as short as three days, which are just DTW-AMS-DTW, to as long as 10 days. Basically hop back and forth between DTW-AMS-BOS-AMS-BOM-AMS-MEM-AMS-PDX etc. One leg a day, most of the layovers are > 24 hours. Looks like the 744 guys do DTW-AMS-DTW, but don't see anything beyond AMS.

Not smart enough to tell you about augmentation.

One thing I meant to add...there isn't any hopping around Europe in A320's or anything like that. I know the Pan-Am operation in Europe at one point had a bunch of 727's running all over europe...we don't have anything like that. We just hand them off to KLM for that kind of flying.

The AMS hub is quite something. As F16dude pointed out, the trips range from 3 days to 10 days. The 747-400 only goes between DTW and AMS, and that is only going to be until winter. All the other flying is A-330. It's a great operation, and the KLM employees run a pretty tight ship.

Carl

the 757 started doing trips to AMS last year from DTW, EWR, BOS, and BDL. BDL trips are stopping in November. They are great trips, and fun to fly! Trips range from 6-11 days, with a possible DH on each end (which is great for commuters!).

Thanks! Yeah, we have 6 and some 8 day Euro trips with a crossing every day as well. Sorry to hear it isn't an Intra-Europe op like our old 727 FRA hub.

Soup

If you haven't read it, pick up a copy of "Skygods" (subtitled something like the rise and fall of PanAm.) It was written by one of the Pan-Am guys that came over to Delta at the end. The chapter about the old Pan-Am inter-german operation out of Berlin is pretty funny. It was definitely the wild-west out there.

First I will say that while AMS might be considered to be a "hub" operation for us, it is nothing like the Narita operations.

AMS is a hub in the sense that we have MANY flights there from non NWA hub cities, many flights from the NWA hubs and a NWA flight from AMS to another international city (BOM).

The last I checked NWA flies to AMS from:
Non NWA hubs: PDX, SEA, BOS, EWR.
NWA Hubs: MSP, DTW, MEM.
International from AMS: BOM.

I think the BDL service has been halted.

So, while it is not the hub operation that Narita has, it gives Japan a run for it's yen when you consider all the crews that can meet up at the local watering hole for happy hour at oh, I don't know, 5 o'clock maybe. :rolleyes:

I did some of the intra-european FRA hub flying back in the early nineties after DAL acquired that operation from Pan Am.

It was absolutely fantastic. Typically they were 12 day trips with about 40 block hours that paid 75 hours.

The captains that did that every month were some very senior dudes. That is, they could have held anything in the system, but liked that operation so much they stuck with it.

This is the last month for BDL I believe...(Sept)

And we also pick up 757 service IAD/JFK - AMS 10/1

As others have said, great operation, great layover. Last week when I pulled in at 0630L one entire side of the E-concourse was NWA aircraft.