When Atlas Airs contract ends it will be taken over by National Airlines from Ypsilanti, MI in the USA. Ypsilanti is the home of many a bottom feeder cargo outfit. National Airlines are a lower form of Kalitta Air from same city. National use the same basic bottom feeder plan that Kalitta et al have used from day one, buy a junker of a plane or two, paint it a pretty colour and offer your services at the lowest price possible and have a spare parts warehouse with the capacity of a London phonebox and a maintenance team so qualified that they need to look at both ends of a hammer before deciding which end to use.
Word is that the pay and conditions that National Airlines offers its flightcrew makes the pay at Virgin America ($45USD an hour for an FO) look excessive. National Airlines low balled their bid with EK so much that Atlas are now, or are soon to be, a thing of the past. How EK assumes that National Airlines will be able to offer the worldwide support that Atlas Air did is beyond me, tapered with the fact that National only last month took delivery of its first 747-400 based on getting the EK contract and prior to that were operating one DC-8-63's, a DC-8-73 and a couple of Hercules.
With EK management having cut corners on everything they possibly can, and later recognised that this style of management doesn't always work one would not be at fault to assume that allowing a carrier such as National Airlines take over the operation of its 747 freight department could turn out to be an unmitigated disaster........Time will tell.
Last edited by EFC 3 DAYS; 13th Oct 2010 at 10:02.