WarniWarni

We need to snag some more -8s

SealingStemBolt

Hey don't diss the BCFs too much, they're total gold mines. Bought for next to nothing they can park them in the desert and bring them back out for peak flying or whenever trouble calls. They're the ultimate flex airplane for an airline that specializes on flexing.

They just need a "dont' laugh, it's paid for" bumper sticker.

Compare that to a 747-8 or brand new 777 that has a mortgage payment you can break down to thousands of dollars per hours that needs to be kept flying every minute of every day. It's no wonder those planes usually get placed in long term contracts (that actually make less money than ad hoc) while the wrung out -400Fs and BCFs can just loiter in ICN, HKG or MZJ until the company can jump on a juicy short term deal.

dera

Not sure where you heard that ad hoc makes more money, that's not generally true. A lot of ad hoc is last minute crap to Africa and such, where there are 30 companies bidding for that business. There are a lot of very low level companies bidding for that business, those companies can't provide any sort of reliability that long-term contracts require, so they just bid as the lowest bidder for those last minute ad hoc gigs.
We are not even bidding for most of those charters, it's not worth our time as the long-term contracts pay a lot better. The rare ad-hoc jobs out there that need to be done on time (Taylor Swifts and such), those are what we go after and those pay very well. But in the ad-hoc market, those are rare. Generally ad-hoc pays less than contract work.

JohnnyBekkestad

my prayers can’t through. Flight cancelled… whoop whoop

zerozero

Look, I just drive. So I'm not gonna invest too much time on this, but my understanding of the ad hoc market is totally different. You're right that we have passed up on a lot of African work that doesn't pay very well, but that isn't ad hoc. Those are contracts; they just don't pay very well.

Ad hoc does pay very well because it usually comes out of left field and the company charges a premium to squeeze those flight into their "known scheduled" contract work. These are things like disaster work or picking up a blown engine for another airline.

Maybe the term ad hoc has negative connotations due to it's unscheduled nature but if you looked at the company financial reports (back when they published them) you'd see ad hoc does pay out.

Furthermore, concerts, like Taylor Swift, are not ad hoc. The customer has a name and you can find it on the company flight tracking website. They have been a long time customer (i.e. "contract" vs ad hoc).

SealingStemBolt

zerozero gets it. There’s high end and low end work out there. Part of the secret sauce at Atlas is having just enough regular work to pay the bills but slack in the network to swoop in and snag the juicy one off contracts when they appear.

Compare that to say, western global which almost exclusively does ad hoc and picks up any and all work it can get its hands on. It’s inevitably going to go after the low end stuff to put their planes and pilots to use that Atlas has the luxury to pass on. Which isn’t to diss WGA, just a different niche of the ACMI business.

jrmyl

I believe it is 429MC that is going away. I flew it just prior to its tire excursion in ICN and had a mechanic on board who was saying it was leaving.

dera

429MC I believe is our oldest plane.
It's also the only BCF we have, isn't it? 472/473 are BDSF? (this is with my pedantic hat on, not really relevant but just curiousity).

dera

I think I should have been more clear on what I consider "ad hoc". The word "ad hoc" means "as necessary", it doesn't mean last minute.

Taylor Swift to me is ad hoc, as it is not a long-time contract, but a contract that was negotiated as one-time deal.

Most African flying ends up being ad hoc, as those clients generally don't want to pay the premium for reliability. So they throw the shipments in a pool and see who grabs this round. Those are not contracts, this week National may take it, next week it could be WGA, and so on. That's ad hoc.

But you are 100% correct that some ad hoc stuff that absolutely needs to be done right now pays very well, those are the gigs we do fly. But majority of "ad hoc" stuff out there we ignore.

zerozero

Ok man.
Whatever, as long as my paycheck doesn't bounce.
Happy landings.