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NotMyJob
1st Sep 2001, 11:41
Powers that be have decided it necessary to implement redundancies effective 30 Sep, cutting 33% of crews. Crews will be reduced from current 15, to 10 crews. Also laying up one aircraft ufn.

The Guvnor
1st Sep 2001, 12:37
Which aircraft are affected? The A300s? Are the Belfasts still operational? How's Prime doing?

The slug man
1st Sep 2001, 13:29
Ive seen Prime have been doing the odd flights out of Manchester this week.

fadec_primary_channel
1st Sep 2001, 13:45
Prime has had an A300 at EMA for months, awaiting a C of A allegedly. Not sure what it is going to operate though.

JOBBA
1st Sep 2001, 15:47
The Belfasts are not affected, the redundancies are only on the A300 fleet.The Prime A/C seems to be doing well with a reasonable amount of work. Lets hope things improve quickly so some jobs may be saved.Apparently the aircraft that was being laid up is now going to do some work but I wouldn't hold your breath. :(

The Guvnor
1st Sep 2001, 16:23
Bear in mind that most European operators of A300Fs are now dumping them (eg Schreiner, Farner) due to DHL and other contractors using their own rather than contracted aircraft. The A300F has not been as good a freighter as the publicity documentation made things out to be - providing a payload only slightly more than that of a DC8 or B707 (although with greater volumetric capability) and at the end of the day I suspect that a lot of the owners - especially CS-Aviation will end up with aircraft they will be hard-pushed to dispose of except for very low prices.

Interestingly, there has been little interest in the A300F from the main operating area of DC8s and 707s - Africa.

411A
2nd Sep 2001, 04:53
The Guv is right about the A300F, rather expensive and in addition, simply does not have the range necessary to replace 707/DC8 aircraft. We were looking at the A300F for some of our planned routes, but dry tanks at TOD does not sound too good.

JB007
2nd Sep 2001, 11:52
Prime, as stated, aren't doing too badly, i've seen it's had alot of work from AIH/JMC/BY from both LGW and MAN.

FREIGHTMEISTER
5th Sep 2001, 09:46
The ops guys at STN are also worried as to who is next for the chop with the joint venture between AF and HLA in the process of being finalised...and an uncertainty over levels..

Time will tell on this marriage

CargoOne
5th Sep 2001, 17:29
Guv,
what are you talking about? A300 and DC8 cannot be compared. A300 is ideal to operate short hops in Europe, providing the volume. Express operators were hunting for volume, not for payload. And even not express operators but forwarders. I think Cargo Lions guys remember the moment when their 8-62 was changed for A300 on one of the european routes, becuase due to volume restrictions diesel-8 was carrying around 25-27 tons only.
From the other side, A300 operators never tried to secure LHR-HKG contracts. It is absolutely different business.

freightdoggy dog
6th Sep 2001, 00:22
Horses for courses Guv. 6000 envelopes in one ULD @ £35 each has more profit than 20 pallets @ 15p a kilo!.We carried 3 of those yesterday so all the air cargo is just cream on the cake to express operators.
Heavylift should have stuck to what they knew best.The A300 on their AOC was just a smokescreen to stop objections to the IL76s
flying inta europe.
Oh and the ramp guys at EMA would like to thank PJ for the Prime A/C yesterday. It was being put to great use as a "smoking room" to put their feet up and have a snout when it was raining cats and dogs. :D

redfield
6th Sep 2001, 19:23
The Prime Airbus might have had a lot of work done on it but it apparently needs a lot more. It was supposed to operate a trooping flight through us on Friday night, but it didn't arrive until Saturday lunchtime. It was tech in Milan after a load of oil spewed over the air-con system filling the cabin with rancid acrid smoke, and then the brakes locked on. The thing is a heap! HLA should stick with Belfasts and Antonovs if you ask me!

Mr Angry from Purley
6th Sep 2001, 20:17
The Prime 300 has been parked at EMA allthis week apart from Tuesday when it went away mid afternoon. Can't be making much money and summers nearly over

Tazzy
6th Sep 2001, 22:22
The Prime A300 may have had some technical problems at the weekend, but it sounds like many other operators also had problems. Up to now the A300 has rescued passengers from most of the uk operators without any problems... next time you arrive at the airport with the family you may be pleased to see her waiting to take away when the newer equipment has again failed!

NotMyJob
7th Sep 2001, 04:32
Hey guys, nice to bash, but it's not a bad place to start from. No liabilities...

Rapid_Climber
7th Sep 2001, 12:40
Mr Angry from Purley obviously needs to get up to EMA a bit more often, as since going into service the Prime aircraft has only been spent a few days there, the rest of the time it's been jetting off around Europe helping out it's glad customers. :rolleyes:

JOBBA
7th Sep 2001, 16:43
Nice one Tazzy! I wholeheartedly agree withyou. ;)

foxtrot _oscar
9th Sep 2001, 17:56
Rapid_Climber,
I find it somewhat amusing when you say Prime has been ' jetting off around europe helping it's glad customers'
From what I hear is it not true it nearly went off the end of the Runway in BCN the other week with a load of vip's from Fiat onboard?!!! (thats the rumour thats going round the big boys at the moment, when I say big boys, I mean proper airlines!). And did'nt they cancel the return sector because they were too anxious to go back on the dreaded Prime 'death' Bus.

Now I know you're probably thinking 'but we still get lots of business', believe me, your the last in a long list of sub service providers and your luck will run out.

I also heard the other week from some passengers of stale/mouldy rolls being handed out for catering ! Was that your premium service cabin? and how they would "never travel onboard that thing again".

Mind you I hear the freighter side ( HeavyLift) aint doing too good either - with these redundancies & all

Rumour also has it you dont even have a crewing department anymore!!!!!!!! How more embarrasing can it get for you guys!?

I'd edge my bets on you boys going into Liquidation before long ( a a a a Transaer! sorry I sneezed)

Sad really because HLA used to be a very respectable company and have a good name in the industry

[ 09 September 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Towers ]

Mr Angry from Purley
10th Sep 2001, 00:19
Rapid Climber - you wanna put money on your
"few days" at EMA as i'm sure anyone working at EMA would take you up, clearly your misguided,blind or both.
I know enough about the ACMI business to know that machine won't make money by sitting around for 3/4 days a week, and even if it goes off for a quick rescue mission thats still not enough £ to pay the bills...



:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

freightdoggy dog
10th Sep 2001, 00:23
Also the EMA ramp rats need somewhere to have a smoke when it's raining!

Justin Abeaver
10th Sep 2001, 13:13
BEWARE, THE HADJ IS APPROACHING ...

Tazzy
10th Sep 2001, 14:59
Well, the Prime A300 operated all weekend for the 'BIG BOYs'(again)

So, Foxtrot Oscar, when exactly will Primes luck run out? Perhaps your going to set up a better airline, dont think so somehow! Probably too busy trying to do the Sun crossword!

Why is it so hard for people in this industry to be positive? The term 'whingeing pomm' springs to mind.

Lets hope for the staff at Heavylift and the staff at EMA (inc handling agents), that Prime is a success.

Rapid_Climber
10th Sep 2001, 19:22
Foxtrot_Oscar; I notice you have to set up a new ID before making your bold statement, are you worried everyone might know you? Don't know of such an incident, the return was subbed due to the aircraft being tech, I suppose half right is close. Tazzy I don't think it was the Sun crossword, maybe the Daily Sport.

Mr Angry from Purley; I guess I'll have to order my white stick as 6 outta 7 days seems good to me, of course the aircraft appears at EMA, IT'S PRIMES BASE.

Maybe some of you need to take a leaf out of Cougars thread, they have taken just as long, and had similar problems in setting up the aircraft, but you don't see everyone involved directly or indirectly putting the operation down publicly. No they congratulate themselves for what they have done. It angers me that the people involved in a project should criticise it. Work it out lads your just putting yourself down and making yourself look stupid. Either do something about it, or shut up. :mad:

CargoOne
10th Sep 2001, 20:03
Rapid Climber,

Being involved in airline commerce I will support Mr Angry from Purley - this bird is not earing enough money to pay the bills, even if it's out of EMA for 6 days. A300 needs to achive at least 250+ hours monthly to offer competitive rates (forget about a300 freighters utilization - they carrying much more profitable payload than pax - so DHL can afford it). I really doubt if any airline/broker will buy substitute or charter of a300pax if operator wants to cover fixed costs in 70-100 hrs utilization (I think that now Prime's bird doing about this fugure). If it's doing 1 roundtrip per day in average, it needs to do LHR-DXB rotations, not intraeuropean short hops.

Tazzy
10th Sep 2001, 21:55
CargoOne,
Surley its speculation to suggest how much she should fly to acheive competitive rates without knowing how much the lease payments are?(amongst other things) I dont think its doing too badly considering its only recently come into service.

xyz_pilot
11th Sep 2001, 02:33
CargoOne

250 Hr per month seams a lot for an aircraft which aims to do "rescue" sub charters.

Can anyone here from EAC comment on what there 737-200's do per month?

EI - E I - O
11th Sep 2001, 12:24
Prime have only come into exsistence, since Nov/Dec of last year, having an airline operational in that time, is simply amazing! Everyone knows the normal time, money and heartbreak it takes to get up and running and they have done in a matter of months.

This A300 is a -200 and would bearly make Turkey, never mind Dubai!The -200 does prefer to be operational, to keep the deffects to a minimum, even the battery packs, for the floor prox lighting, go dead in a matter of hours, unless the APU is run, its not a nice situation to be AOG, because of battery packs, with all of the other "New" defects arise on start up, because the aircraft has been on the ground for a number of days.

The Hajj will generate the cash for this aircraft this winter. PIA engineers know the A300 and will keep this thing operational over the Winter months.
I suspect this aircraft is purchased outright by a private investor, who probably is willing to wait 2/3 years to get a return on their investement. It is also quite common on the A300-200's to have a power by the hour deal with the leasing companies, but I do not believe this to be the situation, in this case.

Good luck to Prime, I have no envolvement, but I hope they do suceed, there are too many airlines going to the wall, at present. I hope they find their niche over the course of the present recession.

The Guvnor
11th Sep 2001, 13:10
Yep, I can agree with those sentiments, EI - EI -O - I know exactly how long it takes to set up an airline (been working on this one for 20 months now but it feels an awful lot longer!) - usually the amount of time it takes to set one up is counted in years rather than months.

I understand that the passenger aircraft came from Farhad Azima, who is the ultimate owner/backer of the company.

Unfortunately, though there are lots of people here who think that they know how to run an airline, I can count on the fingers of hand those (to my personal knowledge) on here that have actually done it. :D :rolleyes: :D

CargoOne
11th Sep 2001, 14:32
Tazzy,

You might be surprised but I'm not speculating. I KNOW EXACTLY what money they wanted to achieve monthly with this bird, and that was reasonable. My only speculation is current utilization but I bet it is less or around 100 block hours.

flugpants
11th Sep 2001, 15:01
Errrrr.......think that you`ll find that Prime is not a new airline set-up but a variation to the existing HLA AOC setup. How is it so amazing to take 8-9 months for a variation to an existing AOC - with the A300 already on the AOC (ok so its a freighter!). Also - because the aircraft has such appauling payload/range it really does limit the winter ops scenario. Agree would be great to see this work - but there aint gonna be a lot of support over the Winter months from EMA!! October onwards is showing a lot more avail accross the UK charter fleet - so why pay more dosh for more positioning when you can use a based unit instead?? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :confused: :rolleyes:

The Guvnor
11th Sep 2001, 15:17
The CAA views pax and cargo operations (quite correctly) as being very different and it is therefore fairly hard for a cargo operator to get recertified to carry pax but not the other way round.

EI - E I - O
11th Sep 2001, 16:56
Flug pants, you are probably correct about the winter in EMA.

I am a "Pruner" not a "Primer", but word has it, and it certainly, looks more than likely, that this aircraft will become a familar sight over the winter months in KHI.
With regards to the AOC is true, but I understand even, after the ops, admin, and C.C. were on the payrole @Prime, HLA had difficulty with the CAA issueing the C of A, because there were not enough Cabin Crew P.A. handsets on the aircraft, now picture the situation, where you call Toulouse and tell them you need a Mod to install additional PA's at the Cabin Crew Stn's on a 20-25 year old Aircraft. There response would be "OKAY, apply for R.F.C leadtime 6 months, Airbus issue a quote for the Mod, contact Daimler Chrysler, then there is another 6 month delay on parts", so yes I do think it was amazing, they were operational in a couple of months. Especially being in the CAA Juristriction, they pull no punches!!
No offence Guv, but even if you did go full steam ahead today, to get operational, you might not see the clouds until, summer 2002 and that would be an fair estimate and would be a fiine achievement, cost you a bloody fortune and you might be grounded, because you don't have enough Public Announcement systems on the aircrsaft. Think of the slots, recruitement, catering, maintanace etc. etc. -


Who needs that grief????? Good luck to Prime and the people behind it!

CargoOne
11th Sep 2001, 17:15
EI - E I - O,

What was the problem with PA headsets? How other A300 operators managed that?

Mr Angry from Purley
14th Sep 2001, 23:39
For obvious reasons the Prime A300 has been away from EMA since tuesday which i can only assure readers is its longest spell away since it arrived with an AOC, rather late.

Winter @ EMA will be quiet, for info the Haj commences late January 2002. How old is the aircraft as the Saudis won't allow anything over 20 yrs old into Jeddah..
:mad: :mad:

The Guvnor
15th Sep 2001, 00:38
Just wanted to correct an error in my earlier post - the A300 doesn't belong to Farhad Azima, but rather to GECAS who were apparently less than impressed with the CAA and the amount of work they had to do to get the aircraft into compliance!