Guys,
I'm working with DHL in Brussels. From what I've heard, Astar management were getting a little too smart for their own good. They had planned to raise the cost of the JFK-BRU-BAH-BRU-JFK route which operated 3 times weekly. As extra capacity was needed, DHL persuaded Kalitta go change route from AMS-BAH to BRU-BAH and made a block space agreement. Kalitta had no problem uplifting the freight presently carried by Astar, and was thus used as a bargaining chip. Astar referred to the contract which guarentees that they uplift 50% of all freight originating in the States. DHL got around that one by claming that, as far as they are concerned, the freight originates in Europe (as it's carried trans-atlantic by Kalitta).
Latest rumours has it that Astar will be back, either in August or October once they've had a chance to cool off.
This side of the pond we thougth that with the demise of DHL Airways and Astars relegation to what is effectively contractor status, that the DHL US guys would wind their neck in and start reading from the same rule book as the rest of the world. It would seem there is still some lingering elements of superiority feeling, and the point of this highly political exercise is to tell Astar management, in no uncertain terms, that if they don't get in line the plug will be pulled.
We recently had a visitor from the ABX pilots union over to press flesh. Got a peek at the contracts for both ABX and Astar crew and was shocked. Not that I wouldn't mind pulling that kind of money. Am just left wondering if paying a DC8/767 skipper upwards of 250K USD/year is sustainable in this day and age - especially not seeing that both Astar and ABX (Air) are loosing money by the bucket load.
Anyway, the talks with the ABX man nearly broke down when he introduced the idea of ABX/Astar providing capacity for intra-EU flights. Or rather, we thougt it would be an excellent idea if he could just persuade Congress/FAA to allow our OO- and G- reg'd aircraft to perform domestic flights in the US. He waffled on and on about how one cannot compare the two and yadda yadda yadda, with each and every argument effectivly shot down by a very attentive audience, after which he made a hasty retreat to other topics of mutual interest
Having talked to a few of the Astar DC8 guys, one is left to wonder who exactly bought who, as ABX seems to be the loudest and very keen to call the shots. For DHL as such, not much cause for concern as neither Astar nor ABX (Air) are owned by DHL. They merely provide capacity, in the same way as Kalitta/Gemini/Lufthansa/Johnsons Air/MK Airlines/Atlant Hungary/Icebird Cargo/Danish Air Transport/West Air Sweden etc etc etc. and their contracts can be revoked with the usual 1-2 year get-out clauses.
