GTI4001 doing TPA-ABE currently.

Sort starts this week at CVG. We received an email stating as much and that all of our crews will have meals brought to the planes because of the expected lengthy delays. I won't be bidding Amazon for quite a while at this rate.

A388 wrote:

Have any international destinations been announced by now? I remember reading here that Amazon also uses DHL for there shipments. Is that still the case now? Will Amazon leave the international flying to integrators such as DHL, UPS, FedEx?

I also remember seeing a headline of Alibaba having an impact on cargo carriers too, is this correct?

A388

This isn't a service that's going to do International any time soon. It has a specific domestic purpose.

In Europe, Amazon may use DHL to help with local delivery of groceries and probably some same-day stuff. But DHL isn't going to do domestic US delivery for Amazon, nor is Amazon going to fly DHL packages in the US.

Alibaba has nothing to do with this operation. Amazon is helping its vendors in China save money and increase speed in their delivery of stuff to US consumers with a number of programs, but those programs have nothing to do with this operation.

Acey559 wrote:

Sort starts this week at CVG. We received an email stating as much and that all of our crews will have meals brought to the planes because of the expected lengthy delays. I won't be bidding Amazon for quite a while at this rate.

Oy. Hubris is a bitch. They had, in hand, a clear path to doing this successfully themselves, with the help of the experienced ATSG companies. But they chose the pretty girl with fleas. So here we go...

One fortunate thing is that the hub-bypassing flights operate completely-separately from the flights to and from the hub, so it isn't going to muck up the rest of the system.

Thanks for the reply wjcandee. I mentioned Alibaba as example of another big company just like Amazon and what impact they (will) have on the air cargo industry. I know Alibaba has nothing to do with Amazon

A388

Departure times looked pretty good today, most flights departed CVG on time, I only saw ATN3202 with a 30 min delay, ABX4402 with a 50 min delay, and GTI3004 with a 70 min delay. All the others were within 0-20 min of their scheduled departure time. Four flights: ABX3425, ATN3214, ABX3413, and ATN3281 actually left early! With 16 departures today, that is pretty good for an operation that has not even been running two weeks and has some crew that were just hired. Just give them some time, they will get the system down, and it looks like it is already showing improvement. Once they finally have their own facility (and essentially private runway), that will help matters a lot!

I have been pleasantly shocked that flights have been on time, if not early, this week with the change to pure sort using A cans. We left on time today.

cvgComair wrote:

N1399A has left KMZJ, says its bound for KCVG, but the flightplan shows it going to EDFH.

FWIW, after our previous exchange about this airframe, which diverted to CVG rather than going to HHN on Saturday (May 6), it spent the night in CVG and left for HHN the next day, then to TLV. It's now in TLV for conversion.

BTVB6Flyer wrote:

Small excerpt about the Amazon Cargo Ops at TPA from Tampa Bay Times. Includes apparent Cargo expansion and some incentives.

Interesting article. Of course, it gets it wrong in the first 'graph when it says that Amazon is flying cargo IN to TPA to go to its distribution centers. While there may be some rebalancing that occurs, the primary purpose of the flights, of course, is to take product FROM distribution centers in Tampa to inject into the last-mile delivery stream at the customer's destination. It's coming from TPA because it isn't in stock in a distribution center closer to the customer in Peoria. If cargo is coming into TPA by Prime Air, it's going not to a DC but to a Postal Sorting Center, for last-mile delivery to customers in western Florida. If Amazon routinely had to bring product into DCs by air, they would shoot somebody. The stuff is supposed to arrive at DCs in bulk at regular, planned intervals at a leisurely pace, taken over the long-haul from the manufacturer by efficient boat or rail or truck (or a combination thereof). If it's coming to the DC by air -- ouch! $$$$ -- something's wrong.

Operational note: looks like 311AZ did an air return to CVG today shortly after takeoff on ATN3256 to SCK. It then flew to ILN for repairs. Looks like Atlas substituted in on that flight, running a flight GTI4501 using 1093A. So having the spare in CVG proved fruitful!

Even though Amazon is only flying a small number of flights into CVG right now, I will say that the additional flights are a very noticeable addition to daytime movements when I'm out on the ramp. I love seeing all the movement. It makes the airport feel so much busier.

One question I have (not directly Amazon related) is, is the FAA still looking to downgrade the tower at CVG? I know it wasn't long ago that it was gonna happen but since then Frontier has added a significant number of flights, Southwest has announced they are coming to CVG, and Amazon has announced and started building its new cargo hub.

AirportRival wrote:

Even though Amazon is only flying a small number of flights into CVG right now, I will say that the additional flights are a very noticeable addition to daytime movements when I'm out on the ramp. I love seeing all the movement. It makes the airport feel so much busier.

One question I have (not directly Amazon related) is, is the FAA still looking to downgrade the tower at CVG? I know it wasn't long ago that it was gonna happen but since then Frontier has added a significant number of flights, Southwest has announced they are coming to CVG, and Amazon has announced and started building its new cargo hub.

I won't go into this much since this forum is about Amazon's fleet, but their continued growth could have an impact, so I will respond. I know it was proposed as a case-study at CVG for downgrading similar airports like CLE/PIT/etc. The requirement is 5 million enplanements or 300,000 airport operations per year. CVG currently does not meet this criteria, but they are predicted to hit 9 million pax by 2020, giving 4.5 million enplanements, and assuming growth in passenger airlines and DHL/Amazon, airport operations should be in the 200,000's by 2020. By the time they actually get around to changing this (it has been discussed since 2012, 5 years and no progress), we will be within striking distance of Class B criteria. I know MEM retains class B because of FedEx and the large airplanes coming in, so I feel like based on Amazon's growth, they might just keep the Class B designation. With DHL operating over a dozen 747's a day, plus Amazon and DHL's 777/767/757 fleets, lot's of heavies are coming through CVG on a daily basis. While it really does not change anything being Class C, they might just keep it, plus LUK's traffic patterns significantly overlaps CVG, complicating matters further.

Here is a case-study proposal sent out before Amazon announcement. Keep in mind, this report was also published based on the 2035 master plan which predicted we would not see our current air levels right now until 2035. http://download.aopa.org/advocacy/0328_ ... letter.pdf

Also, this is from the AOPA, not the FAA. I am sure general aviation does not like the Class B overlapping Lunken, but that does not necessarily mean the FAA plans to do anything.

Looks like some posts aren't appearing in the thread...

N1229A, which had returned back to TLV from HHN about a week ago due to a mechanical on its flight towards the US, has now flown from TLV to HHN and then to AMA, presumably for paint.

Premier had been painting the Atlas 767-300BDSFs at RME, but it looks like Leading Edge got the call this time... (Dean Baldwin has been painting the ATI aircraft, except for the first one.)

This is wierd I have not seen a new post in 2 days.

wjcandee wrote:

Operational note: looks like 311AZ did an air return to CVG today shortly after takeoff on ATN3256 to SCK. It then flew to ILN for repairs. Looks like Atlas substituted in on that flight, running a flight GTI4501 using 1093A. So having the spare in CVG proved fruitful!

359AZ had an air return to PHX the other day due to a leading edge flap asymmetry issue. It's still there and is assumed to be returned to service tomorrow.

Also, completely off topic but I know you're interested, wjcandee. I spoke to a mechanic today and the AMES contract providing maintenance for DL 717s will end in about two weeks, so they're winding that down as we speak. Not sure if they're picking anything up beyond the current work.

Acey559 wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

Operational note: looks like 311AZ did an air return to CVG today shortly after takeoff on ATN3256 to SCK. It then flew to ILN for repairs. Looks like Atlas substituted in on that flight, running a flight GTI4501 using 1093A. So having the spare in CVG proved fruitful!

359AZ had an air return to PHX the other day due to a leading edge flap asymmetry issue. It's still there and is assumed to be returned to service tomorrow.

Also, completely off topic but I know you're interested, wjcandee. I spoke to a mechanic today and the AMES contract providing maintenance for DL 717s will end in about two weeks, so they're winding that down as we speak. Not sure if they're picking anything up beyond the current work.

Thanks, Acey! Yeah I noticed that they're down to one 717 remaining. That's a shame; I think that DL has kind of fallen in love with AAR as well as with their QRO facility, so I kind of expected something might happen. Also, AMES has a lot more work to do on the ATSG Amazon fleet than was anticipated when they bid and won the DL contract. They have had a long-term reciprocal relationship with DL on other stuff, so I assume that that will continue. I don't have any color as to what the reasoning was, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing given the significant additional work they have these days. Also, they are becoming the go-to provider for smaller 767 fleets -- Omni, for example, or that Dynamic bird that was too messed up to get to the Far East for maintenance, as Dynamic had apparently initially intended. Also, I noticed they helped Allegiant with an MD80 recently. If they want a steady line of maintenance (which they may not), AAY is going to be under some pressure to ditch AAR after that FAA report came out on how AAR missed five separate inspections and returned the almost-accident aircraft to service without signed inspection paperwork (and without a cotter pin on the elevator push rod); AAR's screw-up is certainly an opportunity for alternative providers with DC9-derivative experience.

Atlas' N1709A is in GYR presumably for conversion, if such facility exists in at GYR.

Whiplash6 wrote:

Atlas' N1709A is in GYR presumably for conversion, if such facility exists in at GYR.

It looks like this frame is already converted, and is stored at GYR. So it's there because it's stored, but it just needs to be brought back to life and painted. Dean Baldwin has a paint facility at GYR, and Aeroturbine has an MRO facility there. But I would assume that if it's an Atlas airframe, there is at least a reasonable chance that it would be going to Premier at RME.

This is serial number 24086, according to the FAA database, which makes it a former Euroatlantic aircraft converted in 2009 and shown as stored at GYR as of Feb of this year. That's when Atlas bought/registered it.

28 years old. No winglets.

wjcandee wrote:

Whiplash6 wrote:

Atlas' N1709A is in GYR presumably for conversion, if such facility exists in at GYR.

It looks like this frame is already converted, and is stored at GYR. So it's there because it's stored, but it just needs to be brought back to life and painted. Dean Baldwin has a paint facility at GYR, and Aeroturbine has an MRO facility there. But I would assume that if it's an Atlas airframe, there is at least a reasonable chance that it would be going to Premier at RME.

This is serial number 24086, according to the FAA database, which makes it a former Euroatlantic aircraft converted in 2009 and shown as stored at GYR as of Feb of this year. That's when Atlas bought/registered it.

28 years old. No winglets.

Whiplash6 liked this post

This is 1709A in its previous livery.

Acey559 wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

the AMES contract providing maintenance for DL 717s will end in about two weeks

One other point: that was a 3-year contract for approximately 80 C-checks, so something plainly happened. And the 3-year contract was part of a 5-year overall agreement. I guess sometimes love doesn't last... I did notice that DL wants the aircraft out for (it's either) 30 or 31 days, and AMES was routinely running a couple days past that (33, 34, 35). Not much, but in a tightly-choreographed operation, maybe that was a factor.

N371AA finished its freighter conversion and is scheduled for a 3 and a half hour air test tomorrow prior to delivery as N353AZ.

[url][/url]

yochai wrote:

N371AA finished its freighter conversion and is scheduled for a 3 and a half hour air test tomorrow prior to delivery as N353AZ.

Great! Thanks for the update! There's only one other ATSG one without winglets. Are the winglet ones on hold? Or are they continuing to work on them?

yochai wrote:

N371AA finished its freighter conversion and is scheduled for a 3 and a half hour air test tomorrow prior to delivery as N353AZ.

Aircraft deliveries are slipping by a few days. 353AZ (371AA) should've been in GYR for paint this week and should be on line mid June.

337AZ is scheduled to be online mid June followed by 395CM by the end of Aug.

Still a few frames out there that are unaccounted for.

371AA (to be 353AZ) is now in SNN on the way to the CONUS. Presumably to CVG, then either to ILN or to paint.

Whiplash6: I haven't seen any movements of 1709A in the days since you mentioned it. I wonder if you have heard anything about whether they're going to have it painted by Dean Baldwin there at GYR (one place that ATSG gets its Prime Air planes painted) or whether it's going to Premier in RME (or elsewhere, given that the last one is being painted at Leading Edge in AMA, apparently).

Up until 1229A went to AMA, Atlas was using its usual contractor, Premier, and ATSG/ATI/CAM was using its usual contractor, Dean Baldwin (at GYR, ROW and GUS).

Nice photo of 371AA landing at SNN after conversion.

http://flightaware.com/photos/view/9512 ... ttype/B763

It has now moved on to CVG.

Acey559 wrote:

359AZ had an air return to PHX the other day due to a leading edge flap asymmetry issue. It's still there and is assumed to be returned to service tomorrow.

Looks like 359 is continuing to have issues. Got fixed in PHX, then flew to ONT, picked up the ONT-CVG flight, and has been in CVG ever since; did a test flight on Thursday and one on Friday. Still not back in revenue service.

Shades of 313's problems back in January, but looks like they have jumped on this one hard., rather than thinking they have "fixed" the issue and then sent it on a revenue flight where it has the same issue again and again and again. They might have had to explain that to their POI, so this seems to be being handled differently, at least from a distance.

I just had a great view of 371AA as it went just west of my house at about 3000 ft and 2 miles on his way into GYR. He went by at 10:07 Local AZ time.

travaz wrote:

I just had a great view of 371AA as it went just west of my house at about 3000 ft and 2 miles on his way into GYR. He went by at 10:07 Local AZ time.

Awesome! (And you're probably the only person who saw that who knew what it was; the rest were probably thinking, "Gee, that American plane doesn't look so good...")

So, based on past experience, figure it should be out of paint around June 5.

wjcandee wrote:

Acey559 wrote:

359AZ had an air return to PHX the other day due to a leading edge flap asymmetry issue. It's still there and is assumed to be returned to service tomorrow.

Looks like 359 is continuing to have issues. Got fixed in PHX, then flew to ONT, picked up the ONT-CVG flight, and has been in CVG ever since; did a test flight on Thursday and one on Friday. Still not back in revenue service.

Shades of 313's problems back in January, but looks like they have jumped on this one hard., rather than thinking they have "fixed" the issue and then sent it on a revenue flight where it has the same issue again and again and again. They might have had to explain that to their POI, so this seems to be being handled differently, at least from a distance.

It had a number of other issues as well, but the slats seemed to be the most pervasive. It's not showing red at the moment so they either fixed it, or they think they fixed it and it will be going for another test flight soon.

Awesome! (And you're probably the only person who saw that who knew what it was; the rest were probably thinking, "Gee, that American plane doesn't look so good...")

So, based on past experience, figure it should be out of paint around June 5.[/quote]

I was following it on Flightradar24 and saw it was going to be close. Maybe go down to GYR and see if i can get a picture .

travaz wrote:

Awesome! (And you're probably the only person who saw that who knew what it was; the rest were probably thinking, "Gee, that American plane doesn't look so good...")

So, based on past experience, figure it should be out of paint around June 5.

I was following it on Flightradar24 and saw it was going to be close. Maybe go down to GYR and see if i can get a picture .[/quote]

Very cool! We would certainly enjoy it!

Acey559 wrote:

It had a number of other issues as well, but the slats seemed to be the most pervasive. It's not showing red at the moment so they either fixed it, or they think they fixed it and it will be going for another test flight soon.

Yep. Went for a test flight (#3) earlier today, then took a short hop CVG-CLT on a revenue run this evening. Maybe it's fixed...

Meanwhile, Atlas covered the ATI3226 CVG-ONT with their GTI4126 (N1049A).

wjcandee wrote:

Whiplash6: I haven't seen any movements of 1709A in the days since you mentioned it. I wonder if you have heard anything about whether they're going to have it painted by Dean Baldwin there at GYR (one place that ATSG gets its Prime Air planes painted) or whether it's going to Premier in RME (or elsewhere, given that the last one is being painted at Leading Edge in AMA, apparently).

Up until 1229A went to AMA, Atlas was using its usual contractor, Premier, and ATSG/ATI/CAM was using its usual contractor, Dean Baldwin (at GYR, ROW and GUS).

I'm pretty sure it's being painted in GYR.

N1229A, the newest Atlas conversion from IAI/Bedek, is done with painting, and should be heading from AMA to MIA tonight, Wednesday.

739AX, the resuscitated Amerijet 767-200 lease return, has been running reliably in the month-ish that it has been working for ATI. Now it's AOG at ABE for the past 30 hours. ABX stepped in and covered today's ABE-CVG-ABE. Despite a drawdown of its fleet by 2 frames recently, ABX continues to have slack in its fleet and thus can continue to do these coverage flights.

Interesting observation about overall fleet sizes:

ABX is down to 27 aircraft total (maybe 26 depending on the fate of one frame that is at ILN). These are aircraft that DHL doesn't want ABX to fly for it anymore, and so are sent elsewhere. (793AX is the latest to leave the ABX fleet, flying off to SNN and then to BAH this week after a multi-week stay in ILN for some pre-new-lease heavy maintenance. Like 769AX recently, it appears to be going to ES/DHX. FWIW, DHX is an airline that 757 fans should love: all 3 of its 752-PCFs are ex-Eastern 1984-85 builds; one is LN42. Wow.)

ATI, largely on the strength of its Amazon work, is up to 21 aircraft operating today, with another set to come on in two weeks or less and another two weeks after that. So 23 (with two more firmly coming aboard around August, so 25 soon). Amazing when you realize that they were at 8 aircraft less than two years ago.

Does anyone know when will Prime Air start International routes?

BOEING777EK wrote:

Does anyone know when will Prime Air start International routes?

I have not seen anything about it yet, but I am not sure it will happen for a while. Since Amazon's loads are light, I bet their 762's can make it far, but I would need to know their exact weights to figure out what routes are feasible. I am not entirely convinced Amazon will/is not planning on using DHL for some international cargo. Just since Amazon came, both Singapore Airlines Cargo and Cargolux started service at CVG, before then the only cargo carrier at CVG was DHL (and FedEx with a flight from MEM and to SDF). It also appears more international carriers are on the way. I highly doubt it was a coincidence they started when Amazon arrived. The Amazon aircraft are also parking intermixed within the daytime DHL aircraft instead of being isolated, it would be quite easy to exchange cargo between the carriers. I have heard the SQC and CLX flights are getting cargo from DHL, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that they just decided to come to CVG.

DHL is operating a significant amount of daytime flights out of CVG now that Amazon is here. It has been years since the approaches/departures have been so busy, the amount of wide bodies moving during the day is amazing.

cvgComair wrote:

BOEING777EK wrote:

Does anyone know when will Prime Air start International routes?

I have not seen anything about it yet, but I am not sure it will happen for a while. Since Amazon's loads are light, I bet their 762's can make it far, but I would need to know their exact weights to figure out what routes are feasible. I am not entirely convinced Amazon will/is not planning on using DHL for some international cargo. Just since Amazon came, both Singapore Airlines Cargo and Cargolux started service at CVG, before then the only cargo carrier at CVG was DHL (and FedEx with a flight from MEM and to SDF). It also appears more international carriers are on the way. I highly doubt it was a coincidence they started when Amazon arrived. The Amazon aircraft are also parking intermixed within the daytime DHL aircraft instead of being isolated, it would be quite easy to exchange cargo between the carriers. I have heard the SQC and CLX flights are getting cargo from DHL, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that they just decided to come to CVG.

DHL is operating a significant amount of daytime flights out of CVG now that Amazon is here. It has been years since the approaches/departures have been so busy, the amount of wide bodies moving during the day is amazing.

What other cargo airline rumors are there.

Cvgspotter15 wrote:

What other cargo airline rumors are there.

I have heard that Cathay Pacific might do HKG and/or ANC, plus I heard Etihad might come, they actually did some flights to CVG a while ago (I don't remember the routes they did last time).

For what its worth, some of the ABX Air planes doing Amazon are painted DHL. So don't assume they are running DHL daytime flights. 3000 and 4000 flight numbers on ABX are Amazon. There is no, zero, nada intermingling of freight. None. And the other 747 airlines are not routing traffic to Amazon. Great to see the airport is busier!

wjcandee wrote:

For what its worth, some of the ABX Air planes doing Amazon are painted DHL. So don't assume they are running DHL daytime flights. 3000 and 4000 flight numbers on ABX are Amazon. There is no, zero, nada intermingling of freight. None. And the other 747 airlines are not routing traffic to Amazon. Great to see the airport is busier!

Ok, thanks. I did already know about the ABX/Amazon thing, only way to keep them straight . Is there any plan to paint them in Amazon colors or are they just going to stay in DHL colors?

For now, the 767-200s will be white, while the -300s will have Prime Air livery. All ATI 767-200s are basically dedicated to Amazon, but ABX doesn't restrict it's 767-200s to any particular customer, although some are more-regularly used on Amazon than others. So sometimes they'll use a DHL painted one, especially when covering ATI.

CVGComair: I love your at-the-scene reports, so please keep posting!!

To add a little color to the above post, there was a plan to renumber some of the 767-200s to AZ tail numbers, all painted white. N768AX was the first to be painted, and was going to be renumbered N191AZ. It would just have a little indication by the door of the operator's identity. The plan halted when ABX went out on strike, and doesn't seem to have resumed. So 768AX still flies as that tail number for ABX in all-white, and the rest of the 767-200s are all still in whatever livery they wore when they started working on Amazon, which is generally white with various degrees of logoing on the ATI aircraft and full ABX livery on the ABX aircraft (except for 768), but where some DHL-painted ones get occasionally subbed in by ABX. So 739AX, 255CM, 714AX, and 791AX, are the all-white ones flown by ATI, and 761-2-3-CX have the ATI logo (761cx for now being in the full older ATI livery).

The next 767-300ER for amazon prime is ln681 this is an Ex. TAM 767 which has winglets registered as N1381A conversion should begin soon

Another 767-300ER for amazon prime is ln487 this an ex Mega Global Air registered as N1181A this plane has been stored at Tel Aviv since 21st November 2016

cvgComair wrote:

BOEING777EK wrote:

Does anyone know when will Prime Air start International routes?

...Just since Amazon came, both Singapore Airlines Cargo and Cargolux started service at CVG, before then the only cargo carrier at CVG was DHL (and FedEx with a flight from MEM and to SDF). It also appears more international carriers are on the way. I highly doubt it was a coincidence they started when Amazon arrived. The Amazon aircraft are also parking intermixed within the daytime DHL aircraft instead of being isolated, it would be quite easy to exchange cargo between the carriers. I have heard the SQC and CLX flights are getting cargo from DHL, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that they just decided to come to CVG.

The Singapore and Cargolux 747s are DHL flights. Nothing to do with Amazon.

cvgComair wrote:

Cvgspotter15 wrote:

What other cargo airline rumors are there.

I have heard that Cathay Pacific might do HKG and/or ANC, plus I heard Etihad might come, they actually did some flights to CVG a while ago (I don't remember the routes they did last time).

Where did you hear that haha

I sure am enjoying this forum. It is nice to get some inside information. I have seen several post referring to Amazon starting international routes. I am no Amazon expert (unless you count all the money i spend ordering things) so I would be interested in people's take on the feasibility of this happening. What would the logistics be? What would be the down side and or the upside of an international operation. Does anyone see Amazon taking the operation over in time? Looking forward to some of the great knowledgeable information from all the folks.