Wouldn't you still have to sell your product even if it was to the freight forwarders. Or do you figure "If you buy it (airplane) they will come" ? Polar's advertising and their sales force are terrible. Why? Because managment are more concerned with fighting their employees than they are with doing business.
I don't have any management guys to talk to. Sorry.
But listen to yourself. ACMI has virtually no variable costs associated with it. All of those are paid by the customer. Why would Atlas sign a contract that is going to lose money. All of the costs that you talk about are fixed costs that Atlas would have to pay if they flew a plane or not...the leases, bonuses etc. I agree that ACMI, as a business model, is in it's declining phase and that the number of contracts that Atlas has is shrinking. But those contracts are still making money. Possibly not enough to cover the fixed costs that Atlas has incurred since buying Polar, but hour for hour, they are making money. On many routes, I don't think Polar even covers expenses. In fact I know they don't. It's right there in the 8K filings if you know how to read them.
BD