Last week we reported that ABX Air is set to layoff 7,000 of its employees from its Wilmington, Ohio, base when their contract with DHL comes to an end.
ATW Online is reporting that Air Transport Services Group (ATSG), according to CEO John Hete, will lay off 6,000 employees and negotiate lower-cost labor contracts with the remaining employees when ATSG goes with a different business model. Air Transport Services Group is the parent company of ABX Air.
Hete said that it will sell some of its aircraft and lease the remaining aircraft and provide Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) services to third parties.
“It’s now clearer than ever … that ABX’s relationship with DHL will be winding down rapidly,” Hete told analysts and reporters yesterday. But he insisted ATSG will become a “pretty solid business with great prospects” that will operate ACMI (Aircraft, Crew Maintenance, Insurance) cargo flights for carriers throughout the world, dry-lease aircraft via its Cargo Aircraft Management leasing unit and expand its Wilmington MRO business beginning in the 2009 second quarter to offer services “as part of a package” to ACMI customers and third parties.
A wet lease is when an airline (lessor) provides “an aircraft, complete crew, maintenance, and insurance (ACMI) to another airline (lessee), who pays by hours operated.” The lessee pays for fuel, taxes, fees, and duties.
A dry lease, on the other hand, is “is a leasing arrangement whereby one airline (lessor) provides an aircraft without insurance, crew, ground staff, supporting equipment, maintenance, etc.”
ATSG will retain 14 of its 27 767 freighters, return five of the remaining 13 to lessors and sell the rest. It will have a total of 36 freighters, which will be a combination of 767Fs, DC-8Fs and DC-9Fs.
