i thought that American Atlas pilots were thrown out of their BA Cargo contract with the formation of Global Supply Systems?
I believe Polax 52 was referring to the closure of the AACS base at STN, years after the formation of GSS. AACS consisted of European pilots flying Atlas schedules, not to be confused with the GSS flights for BAWC.
Not quite...
AACS was originally formed by Atlas as a union-busting group, prior to Atlas pilots having a union contract, to fly the BAWC contract with non-union, mostly European pilots. They quickly expanded to non-BAWC flying, taking other jobs from American pilots.
GSS was a 2nd iteration of AACS, with many of those same pilots flying the same BAWC contract with the same airplanes, now under UK registry. It was formed just as the Atlas pilots were reaching a contract agreement. AACS still flew backup for GSS until AACS was closed.
Just recently Atlas tried to use GSS in their MIA-South America flying, using the 744s that were replaced by the -8s for BAWC. That was clearly prohibited by the Atlas pilots' contract, and didn't last very long.
If Europeans were/are so keen to retain the BAWC/TNT flying for Europeans, then why didn't Europeans buy TNT? Why didn't Europeans form GSS (or otherwise bid the BAWC contract) on their own, instead of Atlas having to shop around for a UK grocery store heir to put up some money and pretend he was the controlling interest?