ATSG continues to ready 763s for service with Amazon. (The last thread was closed, hence this new one.)

N373CM (former Qantas 763) just returned from paint in Roswell on Sunday. It was converted (and presumably heavy-checked) by IAI/Bedek between December 2015 and May 2016 and had been sent to Roswell for paint.

I'm curious whether it got an "Amazon" paint scheme, or the traditional ABX or ATI paint scheme, and when it will go into service!

In mid-May, N377CM, another ex-Qantas 763 that had been stored at VCV for two years, went off to IAI/Bedek for conversion and, again, presumably for heavy-check. The last one took six months, but I'm assuming this one will be back a little faster. Bedek says more-or-less 100 days is the norm.

Don't forget that there is N374CM in between those two. It arrived in TLV on 24 February.
A

Just a quick update on things happening at ILN.

Today, ABX operated a second 762 to ONT from ILN under an Aerosmith flight number (ABX3109). It turned late at night and headed to DFW under a sequential Aerosmith flight number (ABX3110). It then left DFW in the morning for ABE on another Aerosmith flight number (ABX3108). It will be interesting to see if it departs ABE for ONT later today. Still don't know if this is a one-off or, seemingly more likely, a new regular route ABE-ONT-DFW-ABE.

Also, I was interested to see a former Cappy 727 off to SBD from ILN. Hard to imagine that it will be going into service for someone, but I guess we will see what happens to it.

wjcandee wrote:

The last one took six months, but I'm assuming this one will be back a little faster. Bedek says more-or-less 100 days is the norm.

Our first one to go thru Bedek took 6 months+ as well. Wonder if there was something slowing them down over recent months.

I'd love to see a 727 return to the skies.

United_fan wrote:

I'd love to see a 727 return to the skies.

Go to YIP. Between Kalitta Charters II and USA Jet, there are plenty to see.

Will Amazon's 767 wear a livery?

An interesting new (to me at least) flight today was ABX3108, flying direct DFW-ABE, bypassing ILN alltogether.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/ABX3108/history/20160622/1320Z/KDFW/KABE

Yep. It looks like the ABE-ONT leg on ABX3109 was to put the aircraft in position to do ONT-DFW on ABX3110, then DFW- ABE on the ABX3108 that you mentioned. I think this will end up being a routing ABE-ONT-DFW-ABE. During the Aerosmith test, there was an ABE flight nonstop to the West Coast. Perhaps it has now returned in this new routing.

Flights today confirm that this is a new daily Amazon route, this one being run by ABX: ONT-DFW-ABE-ONT

I have yet to see one out the window, but have been told the planes will show some sort of Amazon design. Also, look for another ABE-ILN daily. This was what they ran in the fall test runs was two daily ILN. There is a good chance you will see it again as they have been leaving cargo behind the flights have been so packed.

Looks like we have another Aerosmith flight starting today. An ATN 762 flew today from ILN-SCK -- a second one -- under an Aerosmith flight number, and is planned to depart SCK to DFW tonight. The last addition to the network was an ABX flight that flew from ILN to ONT, then departed for DFW and on to ABE, then ABE to ONT. That route is now firmly in place, ABE-ONT-DFW-ABE.

It will be interesting to see what this route ultimately turns out to be. Right now, all we have is SCK-DFW. So ATN gets this new route. Three flights a day now at DFW. Two at ONT, two at SCK, and two at ABE. Sweet.

Okay, so the latest route is ILN-SCK-DFW-ILN.

ATN3009 ILN-SCK. ATN3010 SCK-DFW. ATN 3012 DFW-ILN.

So...there are now two daily flights DFW-ILN and two daily flights ILN-SCK. Verrrry interesting!

Amazon planes will eventually be painted in an Amazon livery but to my knowledge, the design hasn't been released yet. N714AX just came on the certificate last week (I flew it to SCK Wednesday morning, which I believe was its first flight back on our cert) and the ramp is pretty full with two ex-AA 763s coming online soon-ish. There's an ex-QF 763 out there too.

I was actually supposed to do the inaugural SCK-DFW but Amazon pushed it back to this morning (it leaves SCK at 12:01am scheduled). I spoke with a mechanic last week and he said we have four 767s heading to Israel the remainder of this year and twelve are scheduled to go next year.

Acey559 wrote:

the ramp is pretty full with two ex-AA 763s coming online soon-ish.

Fun to hear about your trips for Amazon! I did hear that the AA birds were for parts, but the folks like you on the ground certainly have access to the best information. Regardless, great to see the continued growth!

One of ABX's 763s will soon be replaced by another carrier on DHL's daily CVG-DFW.

wjcandee wrote:

Acey559 wrote:

the ramp is pretty full with two ex-AA 763s coming online soon-ish.

Fun to hear about your trips for Amazon! I did hear that the AA birds were for parts, but the folks like you on the ground certainly have access to the best information. Regardless, great to see the continued growth!

I'll believe it when I see it with the ex-AA birds. Unless Amazon is going for Airborne Express style containers that go through passenger doors, they won't see service soon-ish. I still doubt they will ever fly again.

United_fan wrote:

I'd love to see a 727 return to the skies.

Just as likely as flying pigs operating for Amazon.

flyDTW1992 wrote:

One of ABX's 763s will soon be replaced by another carrier on DHL's daily CVG-DFW.

Interesting. ATSG's contract through late 2019 calls for it to lease a minimum of 15 aircraft to DHL, including a couple of 763s, and its subsidiaries have the right to operate those freighters. I don't know what the present numbers are, however (it was at 17 as of February 2016), so this is possible. Or it's possible that 763 ends up deployed on another DHL route. I take it that the implication is that this will be put into Amazon service, which might or might not be correct. The Amazon contracts call for 3 763s this year and 5 next year, for a total of 8. The other 12 of the 20 contracted aircraft will be 762s. Right now, there are 8 762s servicing Amazon, with the occasional 763 apparently subbed in. If there are 5 more aircraft to come on in 2016, that means 3 763s and 2 762s.

Whatever the deal is with the ex-AA birds, an ex-QANTAS 763 is off to TLV tonight, presumably for conversion. N376CM. Perhaps that means that another is on its way back from TLV shortly.

wjcandee wrote:

Whatever the deal is with the ex-AA birds, an ex-QANTAS 763 is off to TLV tonight, presumably for conversion. N376CM. Perhaps that means that another is on its way back from TLV shortly.

N170CR is out of TLV next Thursday, inbound to Michigan.

flyDTW1992 wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

Whatever the deal is with the ex-AA birds, an ex-QANTAS 763 is off to TLV tonight, presumably for conversion. N376CM. Perhaps that means that another is on its way back from TLV shortly.

N170CR is out of TLV next Thursday, inbound to Michigan.

Interesting about the Kalitta 763, given that Amazon hasn't announced a deal with Connie yet, although many have expected one...

Speaking of the increase of flights at DFW, I noticed what looks like the plain white 762 parked on the far end of the east side FedEx terminal. Did they move the ground handling from the west side over to the east?

n757tw wrote:

Speaking of the increase of flights at DFW, I noticed what looks like the plain white 762 parked on the far end of the east side FedEx terminal. Did they move the ground handling from the west side over to the east?

I guess they did. I see the all white/ABX flight leave most every morning around 0530ish or so. They are using the building next to us (FedEx). The building seems to be used for USPS freight as they have mail trucks arriving and departing for most of the day. Amazon has really grown in the DFW area over the last two years. There are now five Amazon warehouses in the area with a sixth opening soon.

How about some A310's or MD10's if they wanna be cheap? FedEx will gladly give them some for a great price.

Atlas has its first Amazon flights on the schedule in August. SEA-ILN

gregn21 wrote:

How about some A310's or MD10's if they wanna be cheap? FedEx will gladly give them some for a great price.

Yes, because Fedex has such a long history of providing their used metal to competitors.

xjet wrote:

Atlas has its first Amazon flights on the schedule in August. SEA-ILN

My understanding is that the first 'Amazon' plane will be Atlas/Polar 763, not ABX or ATI.

wjcandee wrote:

flyDTW1992 wrote:

One of ABX's 763s will soon be replaced by another carrier on DHL's daily CVG-DFW.

Interesting. ATSG's contract through late 2019 calls for it to lease a minimum of 15 aircraft to DHL, including a couple of 763s, and its subsidiaries have the right to operate those freighters. I don't know what the present numbers are, however (it was at 17 as of February 2016), so this is possible. Or it's possible that 763 ends up deployed on another DHL route. I take it that the implication is that this will be put into Amazon service, which might or might not be correct. The Amazon contracts call for 3 763s this year and 5 next year, for a total of 8. The other 12 of the 20 contracted aircraft will be 762s. Right now, there are 8 762s servicing Amazon, with the occasional 763 apparently subbed in. If there are 5 more aircraft to come on in 2016, that means 3 763s and 2 762s.

DHL leases 17 767s from ATSG. They added N371CM and N372CM (both -300F) to the agreement this past year. Both 371 and 372 painted in full DHL livery recently. Of the 17 767s, five are -300Fs.

Per our weekly newsletter update from our president:

Upcoming 767 assignment changes in the works include: 255/767-200 will be transitioning to ATI, from CAM on or about August 15; 364/767-300 will be transitioning to ABX to support a -300 upgrade requirement in the DHL network, for which 740/767-200 will be transitioning from ABX to ATI at a later date; 739/767-200 will be transitioning from CAM to ATI in September; 374/767-300 should be out of conversion soon and an ATI airplane to support Amazon; 380/767-300 will be next out of conversion and will be operated in the Amazon network beginning in November. Ultimately ATI will be adding 739, 374 and 380 to the Amazon network by November. 255 will operate in support of 757/767 heavy maintenance and other customer requirements.

I'm going to tuck this question in here. Its about the Amazon operation in general.

When it was announced, there also was a provision where Amazon could end up owning upto 20% of the airlines. One of the things that I've figured out by reading here is part of that is to ward off the FAA from declaring that Amazon needs to start their own airline operations. I'm a bit confused, why would this be? Is it because they own the planes or some other detail that I missed?

Looked up the 2nd daily flight to SCK and found this article that states that ATN will also connect SCK to CLT and will add a 3rd daily flight to the airport tentatively starting August 8th, but its not clear on the exact routing to connect it to CLT. Isn't CLT not in the Aerosmith network currently?

wjcandee wrote:

flyDTW1992 wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

Whatever the deal is with the ex-AA birds, an ex-QANTAS 763 is off to TLV tonight, presumably for conversion. N376CM. Perhaps that means that another is on its way back from TLV shortly.

N170CR is out of TLV next Thursday, inbound to Michigan.

Interesting about the Kalitta 763, given that Amazon hasn't announced a deal with Connie yet, although many have expected one...

Rumors indicate he was reluctant to give up any equity in the company like ATSG and Atlas have. In the meantime K4's management seems to interested in picking up the slack for DHL with their 767s.

USAirKid wrote:

IWhen it was announced, there also was a provision where Amazon could end up owning upto 20% of the airlines. One of the things that I've figured out by reading here is part of that is to ward off the FAA from declaring that Amazon needs to start their own airline operations. I'm a bit confused, why would this be? Is it because they own the planes or some other detail that I missed?

Correctly put: "To ward off the FAA from declaring that Amazon needed to get its own operating certificate."

Because: Amazon is dry-leasing the planes and hiring the carriers to provide CMI (Crew, Maintenance, Insurance), rather than Amazon chartering them.

nikeson13 wrote:

Looked up the 2nd daily flight to SCK and found this article that states that ATN will also connect SCK to CLT and will add a 3rd daily flight to the airport tentatively starting August 8th, but its not clear on the exact routing to connect it to CLT. Isn't CLT not in the Aerosmith network currently?

Yeah, that's wrong. Quoting the airport director without verifying the facts. The flight goes SCK-DFW-ILN-SCK. No CLT. Yet. Maybe the next flight will have something to do with CLT, but more likely it's just a mistake by the reporter or the airport director.

Acey559 wrote:

Per our weekly newsletter update from our president:

Upcoming 767 assignment changes in the works include: 255/767-200 will be transitioning to ATI, from CAM on or about August 15; 364/767-300 will be transitioning to ABX to support a -300 upgrade requirement in the DHL network, for which 740/767-200 will be transitioning from ABX to ATI at a later date; 739/767-200 will be transitioning from CAM to ATI in September; 374/767-300 should be out of conversion soon and an ATI airplane to support Amazon; 380/767-300 will be next out of conversion and will be operated in the Amazon network beginning in November. Ultimately ATI will be adding 739, 374 and 380 to the Amazon network by November. 255 will operate in support of 757/767 heavy maintenance and other customer requirements.

Three more aircraft to ATI must make the pilot pool happy!

I'm also happy to see that the initial Atlas flights are rumoured to be flying through ILN. I don't think there is any permanent decision yet as to whether ILN will be the focus city, but the more flights that keep rolling through there, the better for the region.

Amazon is a tough taskmaster, though. If it isn't working, they will change it. Amazon could have been the savior of the USPS, given all the last-mile stuff that was rolling through the USPS from the Amazon in-house network. However, at least on Long Island, the USPS screwed it up, primarily on Sunday, when a bunch of packages (and most of my Sunday stuff) was mishandled by the Hicksville regional center. They would constantly claim "business closed" when I wasn't a business, and then just deliver it on Monday. They just didn't feel like delivering it on Sunday (that regional center is a cesspool), causing an avalanche of complaints. I thought it was ominous when the reply to one of mine was that they were "going to be using the USPS less". In the last two weeks, almost all of my Amazon in-house deliveries to Long Island, including Sunday, have been handled by an Amazon driver, who apparently also delivers Amazon Fresh. I feel bad because the during-the-week stuff through the USPS, happily handled by our wonderful mailman, was delivered flawlessly. So the USPS is losing the business that could have saved them because they f-ed it up, and Amazon has no patience for screw-ups.

wjcandee wrote:

Acey559 wrote:

Per our weekly newsletter update from our president:

Upcoming 767 assignment changes in the works include: 255/767-200 will be transitioning to ATI, from CAM on or about August 15; 364/767-300 will be transitioning to ABX to support a -300 upgrade requirement in the DHL network, for which 740/767-200 will be transitioning from ABX to ATI at a later date; 739/767-200 will be transitioning from CAM to ATI in September; 374/767-300 should be out of conversion soon and an ATI airplane to support Amazon; 380/767-300 will be next out of conversion and will be operated in the Amazon network beginning in November. Ultimately ATI will be adding 739, 374 and 380 to the Amazon network by November. 255 will operate in support of 757/767 heavy maintenance and other customer requirements.

Three more aircraft to ATI must make the pilot pool happy!

I'm also happy to see that the initial Atlas flights are rumoured to be flying through ILN. I don't think there is any permanent decision yet as to whether ILN will be the focus city, but the more flights that keep rolling through there, the better for the region.

Amazon is a tough taskmaster, though. If it isn't working, they will change it. Amazon could have been the savior of the USPS, given all the last-mile stuff that was rolling through the USPS from the Amazon in-house network. However, at least on Long Island, the USPS screwed it up, primarily on Sunday, when a bunch of packages (and most of my Sunday stuff) was mishandled by the Hicksville regional center. They would constantly claim "business closed" when I wasn't a business, and then just deliver it on Monday. They just didn't feel like delivering it on Sunday (that regional center is a cesspool), causing an avalanche of complaints. I thought it was ominous when the reply to one of mine was that they were "going to be using the USPS less". In the last two weeks, almost all of my Amazon in-house deliveries to Long Island, including Sunday, have been handled by an Amazon driver, who apparently also delivers Amazon Fresh. I feel bad because the during-the-week stuff through the USPS, happily handled by our wonderful mailman, was delivered flawlessly. So the USPS is losing the business that could have saved them because they f-ed it up, and Amazon has no patience for screw-ups.

That 'no patience for screw ups' needs to be emphasized. Amazon has no patience even with their own packaging and distribution centers. Amazon will change routings if say road work keeps a center from functioning. The switches between airlines will be brutal.

Lightsaber

What's amazing to me is that these ancient 762s are flying their tails off everyday after the airlines retired them for efficiency sake, while newer 763s are now getting parted out to support them. It's pretty much the exact opposite of how its "supposed" to go, but yet here we are. These aircraft are getting more cycles and more hours than just a year or two ago, and doing things like ABE-SCK, which is basically a full blown transcon.

Acey pointed out above that ATI will be adding three more aircraft to the Amazon network by November. Initially, ATSG seemed to split the flying equally between ABX and ATI. Now, however, it appears that the preponderance of the next few aircraft added will be ATI. Six out of the current 9 are ATI. I assume that this has something to do with the ability to ramp up the pilot pool, but it is interesting given all the complaining on the pilot boards a few months ago that ABX was Hete's "favorite child" and was likely to get all the flying.

Speaking of the pilot boards, what a whiny, childish, bitchy and minimally-informed (and presumably not-representative) group of ATI/ABX pilots post on APC. The latest is a purported ATI hiring freeze. One nitwit asked whether this was due to Atlas "getting the Amazon flying". No, nitwit, it isn't, if it's even true. The Amazon plan is for 60 aircraft. Right now, 20 under contract with ATSG and 20 with Atlas. The presumption was that Connie would do the other 20, but I think it's a fair bet that the rest will be distributed among the two carriers for now, if they can do it. There is some talk that ATSG will pull back on some of the less-profitable DHL crap and leave it to Connie and other lesser carriers in order better to serve Amazon. But that's all speculation. Other interesting observations on APC include one guy's statement that "the loads have been light". That's interesting, given that others have indicated that in some places cargo is being left behind and Amazon is pressing for 763s ASAP on some routes for that reason. (To my mind, there are bound to be some "light" loads, because absent a complete network, there is going to be some directionality in traffic; it isn't going to be equally-balanced East-West on every route.) There is plenty of Amazon volume to put on these aircraft, because what is going into the in-house network is a tiny fraction of what Amazon kicks out of its warehouses on a daily basis. The whole thing is in a ramp-up phase, and I think is going to be pretty darn impressive once it gets a little more critical mass.

Spacepope wrote:

What's amazing to me is that these ancient 762s are flying their tails off everyday after the airlines retired them for efficiency sake, while newer 763s are now getting parted out to support them. It's pretty much the exact opposite of how its "supposed" to go, but yet here we are. These aircraft are getting more cycles and more hours than just a year or two ago, and doing things like ABE-SCK, which is basically a full blown transcon.

The constant flying is starting to be a problem. ONT Amazon flight made an air turnback to ILN on Monday. DFW has three Amazon flights on the ground at once, which is causing problems. ABX, and ATI are also having trouble with planes breaking on their DHL flights, and other charter work, with only a spare, or two available.

fuelfool wrote:

The constant flying is starting to be a problem. ONT Amazon flight made an air turnback to ILN on Monday. DFW has three Amazon flights on the ground at once, which is causing problems. ABX, and ATI are also having trouble with planes breaking on their DHL flights, and other charter work, with only a spare, or two available.

Huh. None of this should be an issue with proper management. All these aircraft still have significant downtime at destination for maintenance. They're mostly still doing out-and-backs. For example, Flight 3003 arrives SCK from ILN around noon, and doesn't depart again back to ILN until around 2:00 am. So it's on the ground at SCK around 14 hours per day. The a/c working the three-leg journey has a little less time on the ground; it arrives SCK around 2:00pm and doesn't depart until around midnight. So that's 10 hours per day on the ground at SCK (and about 1.5 hours at DFW and 3 hours at ILN, which means about 9 hours in the air). This isn't different from the patterns that these aircraft followed when ABX was running a large national airline as Airborne Express or what is being flown for DHL on a more limited basis. ABX/ATN should understand the maintenance needs of aircraft that are flown in such patterns and should be able to provide maintenance accordingly. Perhaps that's why they are hiring A&Ps and such at places like SCK.

It's also worth noting that virtually all the ATSG Aerosmith aircraft (all except the one that does ONT-ABE) travel through their maintenance base (ILN) on a daily basis, meaning a lot of little stuff has to be cleared daily, and providing an opportunity to take the a/c out of service to swap with a spare and fix anything that needs extra attention that it didn't get at the outstation. I understand that the practice in cargo operations like this is often to do repairs during the extensive downtime at the outstation, but I believe that passing through ILN reduces the opportunity legally to constantly defer stuff.

I have a similar reaction to the alleged issues at DFW. If it's a challenge to have 3 aircraft on the ground simultaneously, then all they need to do is properly staff up. I know that Airborne had a reputation of being able to get more value from a nickel than anyone on the planet, but I can't believe that ATSG doesn't have the management talent and willingness properly to allocate appropriate resources to making this project a resounding success. They have been at this Amazon thing for almost a year now, and should be able to scale up to meet the needs of their client -- it's what they have been desperately-wanting the ability to do ever since DHL didn't listen to them and f-ed up its attempt to enter the US domestic market, mostly because it didn't listen to the Airborne folks. Totally a self-inflicted head wound.

Believe me, Amazon is going to hold their feet to the fire to identify and fix any issues fast, or find themselves out of work.

I had some questions as to whether Aerosmith would be routing packages from Tampa to the Northeast via ILN. Yep.

Tonight, I see that a package was picked up on Tuesday from Ruskin, FL (near Tampa) by a USPS Shipping Partner (meaning AFS), and will be delivered on Thursday by the USPS to Long Island (looks like all my Long Island packages this week are back to being delivered by the USPS, rather than Amazon Fresh's drivers, as they were all last week). I'm guessing the next scan we see will be at Avenel, NJ, which means that it will have arrived by Aerosmith through ABE to the local Amazon Postal Sorting Center. That means that its air routing would be TPA-ILN-ABE on ATSG for Aerosmith.

I think Amazon will get a rude awakening going forward, as they see that operating daily flights with a limited fleet and a lot of outstation downtime will always result in disruptions here and there. Whether that means they look for better network operations talent, start putting up airborne spares like UPS or FedEx, or any number of other potential solutions, they're going to need a reality check at some point. My employer (if you haven't guessed who that is yet, I can't help you) is, generally speaking, pretty good at creative problem solving in that department, but if our owner doesn't want to play ball with Amazon, we'll just have to sit back, enjoy our DHL flying, and watch how things unfold over there.

Are there photos of the Amazon 763s in the new livery?

Should we be expecting some new 767 orders? LOL or maybe Not LOL

fuelfool wrote:

The constant flying is starting to be a problem. ONT Amazon flight made an air turnback to ILN on Monday. DFW has three Amazon flights on the ground at once, which is causing problems. ABX, and ATI are also having trouble with planes breaking on their DHL flights, and other charter work, with only a spare, or two available.

I'd expect as much, those 762s aren't exactly spring chickens. In fact, the low hours -281s have a super high cycle count from their time in Japan. The other ones are the opposite, though still getting up there in cycles too. Things are going to break, as even legacy operators of 763s with 0ver 85-95000 hours are seeing. Even AA is having reliability issues.

Do certain airframes get assigned to specific routs (like does one single frame always do the ILN-SCK rotation) or do they get rotated in and out?

Does anyone know if Amazon plans to extend these flights to other cities with a smaller fulfillment center footprint over time? For example CHA with 2 centers or Nashville with 3? It would be awesome to have a regularly scheduled widebody at KCHA.

wjcandee wrote:

It's also worth noting that virtually all the ATSG Aerosmith aircraft (all except the one that does ONT-ABE) travel through their maintenance base (ILN) on a daily basis, meaning a lot of little stuff has to be cleared daily, and providing an opportunity to take the a/c out of service to swap with a spare and fix anything that needs extra attention that it didn't get at the outstation. I understand that the practice in cargo operations like this is often to do repairs during the extensive downtime at the outstation, but I believe that passing through ILN reduces the opportunity legally to constantly defer stuff.

What does the fact that a plane goes thru a MX base have anything to do with how long something can be deferred?

-DiamondFlyer

Interesting developments at ATI, raising the question of what if anything is going on in Amazon's thinking. The pilot boards started burbling a few days ago about ATI stopping hiring, which it had been doing. The initial explanation from management pilots was that they were letting training catch up with the hiring, as they had hired 70 new guys. They apparently ARE losing some DHL flying, specifically one 757. That has been known for some time, so one would have thought that it was baked into their hiring/training plans. So the "training catching up with hiring" explanation made sense, until the latest rumor, which is that they had cancelled the training class that was scheduled to start August 1. This raises the question as to why ATI, which has been getting most of the ATSG Amazon flying so far, and which was expected to have 3 more aircraft come on before the end of the year, would suddenly find itself with more pilots than it needs even to train.

Could be something completely-unrelated, such as ATSG deciding to fold ATI into ABX, which would require retraining the ATI pilots to ABX's very-strict cockpit culture and callout system. But it would seem to be an odd time to do that, given that ATSG would seem not to want to add an additional training burden at the same time as it is growing its overall flying numbers. I guess we will hear more in the coming days, but it is an interesting development.

Or it could be something like Amazon deciding to change the mix of its aircraft, e.g. from 762 to 763, or deciding to order new-builds, and holding off expanding until the requisite 763s can be brought aboard.

Or it could be that the rumours as to class cancellations, etc., are wrong, but plainly something is up. Curiously, no similar rumours from ABX at the moment, but the ABX hiring window closed a little while ago, so there wasn't any obvious smoke to see before any fire.

Someone could lose his shirt if things go south:

http://theloadstar.co.uk/atlas-executiv ... th-amazon/

It has been revealed that Amazon has the right to cancel the aircraft CMI deal agreed with Atlas Air at just 180 days’ notice, in terms that will surely be questioned by investors at next week’s earnings call.

Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon appears to be holding all the cards. Amazon has the right to dry-lease 20 B767Fs from Atlas subsidiary Titan and receive aircraft operation (CMI) services from Atlas, but the internet giant may cancel the CMI deal with just 180 days’ notice merely for the sake of “convenience”.

A good read article!