ABX Astar Rumor

[LarryinTN]

Who was the Airborne guy who predicted that they would get San Juan, Puerto Rico back? Obviously you have a reliable source.

It certainly was rumored ever since we stopped the SJU flights in the DC9.

The information on our October bid packages is that our B767F starts flying CVG-SJU-CVG on the first of October. At the same time an ASTAR 727 takes over ILN-TPA-ILN from on of our DC9s. The DC8F pickes up the ILN-FLL-ILN trip that the B767F had been flying.

The CVG-SJU trip will be a 36hr layover in SJU for the B767 crews as it's blocked for 8:15 round trip. The crews start in ILN and are driving to CVG and the returning crews are driven back to ILN after arriving back at CVG. Due to the driving time the trip misconnects with everything else so it's a stand-alone trip put on the 19 day off lines.

The DC9s had been tight on both crews and airplanes so losing the TPA trip will takes some pressure off. The new west coast shuttles were really keeping the staffing tight. Another DC9 change is that the ILN-ABE-BOS-MDT/MDT-ILN trip is going back to the week-long BOS-ABE-BOS shuttle. The EWR DC9 layover will change to ILN-ABE-EWR-MDT/MDT-ILN.

The change of the DC9 in TPA would be the first test of the communiting situation as we have 20 or 25 pilots in that area but we still have a DC9 going through PIE so that takes a lot of the pressure off. We also have one pilot with a home in SJU. I think he's been spending a lot more time in his US home since we lost our SJU DC9.

As far as the long-term fleet plan goes... The DC9s and 727s would certainly seem to be logical choices for replacement.

 

[abxaviator]

The loss of TPA will really provide no relief for the 9 FO's. The 4 TPA/RSW lines are now 2 RSW lines and we will now have 5 9 Fo's upgrading next month. We had 21 FO reserve lines on the Sept bid and only 17 will be on the Oct award. They have already tried to Junior Man me this month and I'm more than 1/2 way up the list! It's definitely not going to be pretty, but I see them continuing this "we're properly staffed" game until they have to call DHL and tell them a couple flights won't be operating due to crew shortages.

 

[LarryinTN]

You're right, we're still going to be short.

 

[amflightpilot]

Any insight as to what/when might happen to the bottom feeders?

 

[LarryinTN]

The feeders? I have no idea other than there will probably be a lot of changes. There are a lot of places were we fly were there is also a feeder from CVG.

 

[DrRaptor]

DHL Says- "Still Employed" to Feeder Operators....

Last report we got at Air Tahoma was that DHL wanted to keep us (the feeder companies) on the routes everyone is on at Feeders until they can get a good idea of how to meet the load requirements. Our management was told by DHL to prep for the move to ILN, so I'm guessing that for most of the feeders will still be employed, just possibly on different routes.

Any of your ABX guys know how much the 9 is averaging out of CLE lately? I've noticed a huge jump in our payloads, so I'm just wondering if there's been an overall increase in load, or we're getting overflow off the ABX bird.

 

[steamgauge]

As far as the San Juan etc, I was told the reason we got those back was because Astar could not haul more than a little dry ice and we are a full hazmat carrier. We were chartering out freight we were originally carrying.

Maybe DHL will have somewhere to store and process hazmat by the time you get here.

All we carry through the CVG hub is "a little dry ice" because they can't handle real hazmat.

We'll see....