My understanding is the reason cargo is making some money right now is because flights are so scaled back, especially internationally. The rubber dog poo still has to move, and since qantas is not flying to the us there is a drastically reduced cargo lift available to Australia. Ual is stepping in to take advantage of that. Evaair has far fewer flights to tpe, ual is stepping in to take advantage of that, and can charge higher rates. Once flights start coming back the lift will be more available and rates will go back down.

 

Simple supply and demand.

 

I for one appreciated the Arrested Development reference there, clever 😁

 

My question is how much high dollar foreign manufacturing will now be moved to domestic facilities after we all found out how easily the supply chain can be disrupted. I'm thinking of products valuable enough to justify the higher cost of air transport over surface. I certainly don't have the answer.

 

Don’t you worry with the upcoming taxes and penalties we can expect to see corporations fleeing this country in droves.

 

Expect?

Sort of a historical fact at this point. Started in the 80s under Reagan, continued during the 90s under Bush/Clinton (NAFTA). And of course Obama had the TPP. Ain't nothing new happening. We ARE the new Mexico.

https://leaderpost.com/transportatio...me-work-to-u-s

 

UPS had been posting $1B+ quarterly profits (pre Covid, now off the charts) very consistently, with steady 5% yearly revenue gains. Kalitta has done fairly well since it’s rebirth, Atlas doing pretty good, as is Fedex.

Now, if you mean no money in cargo for passenger carriers, who’s primary revenue comes from pax? I cannot comment as I have no idea of pax airline economics.

 

Just spoke with a friend of mine at K4. He said company is doing great but also treating crews very badly up to and post contract signing.

 

UPS is a global shipping company that uses aircraft simply to feed the trucks delivering the freight to the customers and is a completely different model than what we could do. Amazon started an impressive shipping company, however their model is to farm the flying out to the lowest bidder. Prime Air is basically the global freight version of the regionals. If we were to try to fly dedicated freighters and go up against Kalitta or Atlas, they would crush us on cost and more flexible work rules. What United does very well is to maximize cargo revenue on existing flights to increase revenue dollars per trip. When the freight prices soared during COVID making freight only trips possible, we were also very quick to capture a large part of that market as well. As supply returns to the market and prices drop, flying freight only trips won’t work for us, and we will move back to the way things were before. I sure wish that it would work. I’d love to bid 777 freighters and never fly a passenger again.

 

There’s always money in the banana stand.