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4 hours ago, Day Man said:

wow...are you supplementing at all with additional cargo (not even sure if that's a thing)?

Yes, we are carrying cargo but I've not paying attention except for my last flight which was back from Paris. We had 24Klbs and someone said we needed 28Klbs to break even but I can't verify that. I'm flying a cargo only flight later this month to London and next month to Incheon so we'll see how those look. 

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I think there is definitely room for the pax guys to grab more cargo if they can find a way to fit it on the planes, at least for the long haul stuff. We are leaving dozens of cans in HKG every day and now flights are canceling due to aircraft and crew availability. We’re constantly leaving Asia stuffed to the gills. I haven’t left SZX, HKG, or ICN under 980K in months. From what I understand the freight costs are going through the roof. I would imagine you could fill the belly of a 777 or 787 out of Asia pretty easily right now. 

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17 hours ago, Prozac said:

I think there is definitely room for the pax guys to grab more cargo if they can find a way to fit it on the planes

Don't forget that, in the days/months between when international pax flying was shut down, and when the pax carriers decided they were going to conduct some cargo-only flights to keep the revenue stream open, the freight forwarding companies that were previously using the pax carriers still needed to move their product.

UPS and FX (and I have to assume Atlas, Kalitta, ATI, Western Global, Sky Lease, and anyone else who picked up that slack) were all in quite a position of power when those forwarders pivoted to them to move their freight. I know FX, at least, rather than just take on that business temporarily, signed multi-year contracts with those freight forwarders.

I'm sure there are smart business folks at the other cargo haulers as well who would have also penned longer-term relationships with the freight forwarders, rather than just picking up the work during COVID and allowing it to go back to the pax carriers when the capacity came back.

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18 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

"There's no money in cargo" - Rono Dutta, President, United Airlines, 99-02

 

LOL, the same phrase was muttered by a former DAL (or NWA?) exec. when asked why they were dismantling the ANC freight hub.  I get to hear all about it every time we taxi past a cargo jet or a 747.   On one of my last walkarounds (pre-covid), there were pallets upon pallets of UPS boxes being loaded in the belly to go to AMS...guess we are (errr....were lol) making some money of cargo.  

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Never said Face to Face will all go away. You are all definitely correct it can’t be matched on any or many terms and the face to face in discussion was actually traveling somewhere and not across the street to Finance or your local cable/satellite complaint departments. Here is the rub: When has anything like this ever happened like these 6 months now going on 7... Reprogrammed and cost cutting on extreme measures. Totally obvious why Zoom/Skype/Face Time, etc, etc, in business never took off earlier I thought = The World was FORCED into it. Just let me know if/when has it ever become a requirement like now. Has it been ever forced upon you like this? It will eventually loosened its grip and things will flow more and more back to face to face on the business side. Wouldn’t you agree the most important contracts will demand face to face, then others incrementally no doubt as mentioned before. I hope your right and even better than 90% of preCOVID levels will be attained. That would be awesome and definitely what everyone is shooting for, but once again everyone here chose technology prior to this debacle and now we were forced. There have been more losses than wins, more real estate closures than Grand Openings list goes on and on. Definitely business will thrive again no doubt, but to be at the previous levels or greater will take longer than most are willing to believe. Like nature finds a way, businesses that are surviving are finding their way. Seems easier to fall than climb for the most part.

Full Recovery by 2022, 23, 24, who knows. Here’s for having a far better 2021. At least it won’t be hard to beat for the majority.
Bottom line, it’s just a single perspective and if I am totally wrong and I want to be wrong, we all WIN BIG and I prefer it. 

 

Edited by AirGuardianC141747
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5 hours ago, SocialD said:

LOL, the same phrase was muttered by a former DAL (or NWA?) exec. when asked why they were dismantling the ANC freight hub.

To be fair, both of those statements/decisions were made in a pre e-commerce dominated western world, and before a lot of the political/economic changes in Asia of the last decade that are the ingredients of the current global flow of goods and money.

The whole foresight vs hindsight thing, and all.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Any of you retired medically? Finally able to hold a first class. How can I indicate in my resume that I retired due to medical but can finally hold first class after years of treatment? Only had 7 years of service, so don’t want people looking at my resume think anything negative before even talking to me.

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If you can hold a 1st class medical, that is really all you need to have.  Your background will certainly come up on the interview, however if you do not have a Dishonorable Discharge, it should have no bearing on your airline application.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

A couple weeks ago, someone asked about airlines carrying cargo.  I wish I knew what the break even was.  My last two flights:  DFW -LHR, 777-300, 400lbs (derringer pistol parts) going and 28K coming back.  DFW-ICN, 777-200, 0 (zip, nothing, nada) going and 48K coming back.  It was a different experience in a good way with no flight attendants and no passengers.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I Know there are a lot of it depends in this question.  When do you all think hiring will start again for the domestic carriers ?  As of now the levels traveling compares to a year ago are around 30-35%. If a vaccine comes tomorrow do you think it will still be middle of next year or later for hiring ?  Worst case the vaccine doesn’t work. Maybe it takes 1-3 years before hiring again ?

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Hard to say. A couple years is probably a safe bet, but there have been a lot of voluntary early retirements and if demand picks up as a vaccine is distributed, the majors could be scrambling to fill their ranks again. I think a lot will depend on whether and how fast business and international travel recover. International could be slow depending on how individual countries decide to open up (or not) over the next year. Business travel is up in the air because it remains to be seen how zoom/telework will affect that segment. Freight will continue to hire as fast as they can train for the foreseeable future. Welcome to the crazy carnival ride called the airlines!

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4 hours ago, Guardian said:

Did you see an article recently saying something about needing 20,000+ pilots soon? Forgot where I saw it

I'm sure it was an article written by Kit Darby,...

...the eternal optimist when it comes to pilot hiring.  

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21 minutes ago, HuggyU2 said:

I'm sure it was an article written by Kit Darby,...

...the eternal optimist when it comes to pilot hiring.  

optimist wouldn't be my choice of words. To me, optimism implies a degree of naiveté or plausible deniability. That dude knows exactly what he's doing when he spouts that prosperity gospel....

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  • 2 weeks later...

COVID19 brought some slowdown to the new airliners being produced such as the 797 (2 seats, but engineered for 1) and the Airbus  pilotless vehicles if you will. Airbus flew several sorties recently, but with Pilots Monitoring of course, but it’s the initiative/research that is a solid endeavor going forward. Not saying we will be 0 pilot required any time soon, but the technology to cut the pilot force nearly in half within a decade was possible. 4 long haul pilots to 2 (1 asleep, 1 monitoring), 2 pilots to 1 same scenario. The MAX is back so at least they have new life longevity and of course Cargo will be the guinea pigs if this pilot reduction method is tested. 10 years was possible  but doubtful with so much iron laying around the system to draw from, within 20 years definitely a higher probability. 
 

2 worthless cents, but look around your Big Stupid Shutdown Cities: Plenty of hopeful graphs show 1% gains weekly on APC, but a guess is that it will plateau much earlier than we hope and never attain pre-COVID19 levels due to businesses having shutdown, consolidated or migrated to technology based initiatives. So many Big offices for sale, rent, empty with leases to pay, plumbing, electricity, janitorial, parking, insurance, etc with people at home creating their own work schedules who have managed to survive this debacle. Leisure and Holiday travel has its merits as people love their selfies around the world fulfilling their need to actually experience life as they have watched it go by for the past 9 months. Sure, Thanksgiving is having it’s boom hopefully right now but that’s domestically and maybe just a tad more than 50% of the travelers last year. Internationally you can just count years for that revival to be nearly what it was formerly. 
22 year United FO great friend of mine could have chosen the Airbus running through Baltimore and several other hops daily, but chose the 73 for less hops, easier runs despite the cramped quarters. He was a 787 FO enjoying international once a week perhaps and now heading back to the salt mines - his words not mine. Unfortunately this has been 1 step forward 5 steps back for many. Once again just 2 worthless cents having come off a trip through Nashville, Los Angeles, Korea, China, Alaska and back to Chicago in 5 days. Next month Alaska, Hawaii, Australia, Korea, China ground hog day - not much has changed I imagine. It’s amazing to see aircraft at many cities all over mothballed and lying in wait for 6 months so far. A380s as an example may just have only one ferry flight left in them when able or just Can (cannibal) Birds at best.

 

Edited by AirGuardianC141747
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True, most of the fleets were parked just over 6 months like that initially, but thankfully quite a bit have been brought back on line except for the ones that were to be slated for the chopping block within a few years anyway. Iron is laying around more sporadically than before but still very much around. Heavies are where it hurts regarding international movement. They are still very much stacked in clusters overseas. Good review of how bad it really was. Domestic heals a lot faster although what are we at currently - 40% perhaps, have we past 50% consistently? This will take some time and the world has changed a few things around to survive.

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  • 1 month later...

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