413X3,
I happen to agree with the forign statement but define it. Cargo comes in many forms, UPS does not do as much heavy weight as fedex call's their business of transporting heavy goods. At that it is only worth choosing fedex for this service if you have a small volume of sensitive equiptment to ship (not 195k lbs of asparagus)
Polar being the reminants of Tigers picked up a great business that was built over decades, Atlas was ACMI only and tried to ship their own freight before they bought Polar only to find out that they could not do it without the contacts polar had.
Then you have world, centurion, southern etc.. You fit it in my plane and I fly it, these acmi companies are in the middle of the picture, they operate for forign companies from us soil often. When there is a boom they profit first, when things slow down they are scrambeling for customers.
Soo, north west cargo was similar to polar, old cargo contacts, flew their own freight. Those contracts are likely to go to forign and domestic carriers, unlikely though that fedex or ups will see much of the business.
Having said that, something I never understood... FedEx has a world wide infastructure, why not sell bulk freight at bulk freight prices (not the profit margin they are looking for) but if they can develope a new market breaking even on the bulk cargo, the high dollar stuff you can fit in with it is all "cheddar". Surely not business etiquette? maybe so?