Northwest Cargo

[Heracles]

Folks,
At the risk of treading on some probably very sore nerves,, what is the "latest" on Northwest's, or Delta Red,'s or Delta North's cargo ops?
Twelve-ish 742's were advertised as going to the boneyard, by the end of year at the latest. The economy not withstanding,, well the economy is.. well.
The presence or absence of that much lift has got to be felt in the Pac-rim.

So, in the spirit of I'll show mine if you show me your's, this is either "known" or logically assumed:

- Delta south will not soil themselves with cargo = 742's not going to other markets.
- A great deal of the past flying was ACMI-ish for DHL,, DHL now has it's own 744 fleet, so the main customer is gone.
- DHL already heads the list for 747-8's when they come online, don't even bother to underbid.
- If Delta North were interested in persueing cargo in any form, 744 pax birds would already be in line for conversion to BCF's.
- JAL, SIA, and several others are having clearence sales on BCF feed stock, but not a peep from Atlanta.
- Pratt powered,, enough said. (I LOVE the PW-4000,, but the JT-9 is ecomonically dead)
- Regulations/rules will kill the 742 soon, even if fuel prices don't.
- See first point.

This is really just an invite for the free exchange of information (curious mostly),, no harm or flame-baiting intended.
--Heracles

[411A]

It's all really quite simple.
An old friend of mine, who presently has a rather senior position at DAL told me two years ago that....'DAL will never purchase another 4-engine airplane and if we merge with someone, and they have 4-engine airplanes, these airplanes will be gone ASAP.'
In the case of freighters, DAL will sell 'em all and then, if they remain in the cargo market, will lease from another carrier.
It's called, passenger airline economics 101, DAL style.

[jetpro767]

The current Delta CEO Mr Andersen was NW CEO prior to leaving. He and other former NW exec's he has brought in to run combined Dl and NW are for
cargo just not old 747-200's. Just a thought.

[413X3]

I've heard the 742Fs will be retired by the end of the year and all freight carried in the bellies of passenger planes. That's too bad, NWA Cargo is the last separate legacy cargo carrier to survive. They should have purchased 744Fs when times were good and they wouldn't have been outbid by Polar for the DHL routes.

[L-38]

I've heard the 742Fs will be retired by the end of the yearFor info, I had recently observed most of NWA's 742F fleet (if not all of the fleet) already parked at VCV (Victorville, Calif) .

[Intruder]

Several transit Anchorage daily.

IIRC, those were slated to cease operations by the end of Oct or Nov 09. There were still 2 on the ramp in ANC yesterday...

[boingdrvr]

"- DHL already heads the list for 747-8's when they come online, don't even bother to underbid."

WHOA!!! When did DHL order 747-8's.

The only order I've seen DHL make in the last five years was for six 767-300ER's of which two or three have been delivered and are operated by DHL-UK.

[Skipness One Echo]

For info, I had recently observed most of NWA's 742F fleet (if not all of the fleet) already parked at VCV (Victorville, Calif) .

Pinal Air Park, Marana, Arizona surely?

WHOA!!! When did DHL order 747-8's
Might mean DLH as Lufthansa are launching the non cargo B747-8I?

[Heracles]

THINK!!!! DHL bought 49% of Polar,, AAWH owns the other 51%. Most if not all of the current Polar fleet will be replaced by the -8's already on order for "Atlas". The DHL gig could already use the additional lift,, to get that without additional airframes....cool. I really don't think you'll see too many of "Atlas'" -8's with spiderman on the tail (unless he's wearing green).
--Heracles

[Mariner]

I saw a bunch of NW 742's at Pinal Airpark, Marana, AZ, in june this year. Most likely their final resting place.

[bpp]

Heracles,
Are you ASSUMING the -8's are going to Polar? Where did you find the info?
bpp

[mjte43]

http://www.azfreight.com/cfm/news_detail.cfm?id=1673&site_id=15

[CR2]

NW should have thought about all this in the late 80s early 90s :ugh:

[Heracles]

pbb,
Call it ramp rumor, on a very well located ramp.
Yes,, it is an assumption,, but a damn logical one.
DHL owning half of Polar, will just sit in the corner and pout while the shiny new toys are ACMI'ed out to other customers? not
-- Heracles

[413X3]

Atlas can probably shift them around having one group flying for another, anything to piss off all the pilots and laugh all the way to the bank

[Heracles]

413X3,
You sir are obviously familiar with how AAWWH treats their crews, thier maint, their loadmasters, their ground staff, etc. Wasn't always like that; Atlas Air was a class act...... AAWWH not so much.

[413X3]

it's unfortunate that the pilot groups continue to bicker with each other

[L-38]

it's unfortunate that the pilot groups continue to bicker with each other Competition - the human element among mule drivers. Full automation will exclude it eventually.

. . . .now back to the thread . . . History is slowly repeating itself. As in America's maritime harbors today, American air cargo port's are slowly going the direction of foreign based shipping carriers. The demise of NWA's dedicated cargo system unfortunately adds to this direction.

[413X3]

I disagree with that foreign comment completely. UPS and FedEx are doing a great job expanding all over the globe, and they are American companies. The reason for the NW demise has more to do with them not in good times planning for the future by bringing in more up to date airplanes. If they had some 747-400Fs or ERFs they might not have lost the DHL contract and if they did, might have been able to pickup something else. They just kept taking in big profits, then oil shot up again, and suddenly the old beautiful -200Fs were very costly in fuel compared to another company who could bid a -400F instead

[muduckace]

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?

[bpp]

Are you trying to compare Polar vs. NWA? Your contracts averaged about a 62% load factor. Had Polar not been purchased AND had DHL not stepped up to the plate Polar would not have been around to see the retiring of the NWA freight network. Just an honest fact.
bpp

[muduckace]

More or less just framing the air cargo industry in the USA. I am not fluent with NWA's load factors and my experience with Polar was more than 10 years ago. The factor they shared was operating as a heavy lift cargo airline not.. fr8't fwd'g to a forign company to an ACMI airline and the same on the backside. AA liked to fill their bellies W/INTNL cargo on their pax birds to make an extra buck. I respected POLAR's infrastructure back in the 90's.

NWA had a similar advantage that I mentioned above that FedEx has now but does not persue with large contract cargo. Infastructure...

Your load factor numbers are based on current market, during my experience with Polar in that time frame they were allways operating full aircraft. I admit my distance from the US based true cargo airlines of the past such as Seaboard then Air Tiger then Polar. I made my statement based on this.

NWA can not compete with this legacy.. Depends on what you wish to compare your load factor's with. The point I suppose I made was the advantage infrastructure gains prosperity in the freight airline, Delta has an advantage now owning NWA.

Given the fact that NWA is not operating freighters, and Delta has yet to jump into the market, they may loose ground.

I can not find NWA's cargo load factor history but am interested in the info if you can provide it.. Google was no help.

[bpp]

AAWW financial figures for scheduled service prior to DHL ownership share.
bpp

[747MC]

2 PAX Classics, will remain in service until just after Thanksgiving 09 ...currently sitting but filling in military charters. The remaining 200F's will be parked by the end of the year, the only freight DL will carry will be belly freight. The demise of NWA's freight operation other than the economy and 100 plus a barrel oil prices was too few shell's and lack of ground time to properly maintain them, cargo / marketing over promising and under delivering ..running the birds till they parked themselves for maintenance ... loosing the contracts, It was just greed that did that - they ran those freighters on the back of the PAX operation and infrastructure.... it was free money. DL will slowly wain away the -400's too as 777's come on line. If there are ten -400's in scheduled service by the end of 2010 ... I'd be very surprised. The economics of 2 engines and 75 to 80% of the same lift wins out .. 747's ...great birds ... .87M and over 800K .... at an empty weight of 350K ..best ride currently in the sky ...IMHO...

[SNS3Guppy]

I saw a bunch of NW 742's at Pinal Airpark, Marana, AZ, in june this year. Most likely their final resting place.

The airplanes are in the process of being moved and put back into service by another operator. Some will become parts airplanes, but about half will enter service again, flying freight.

[bloomboy10]

And the operator will be?

Kalitta Air!

[GlueBall]

OK... a lot of sweeping generalizations made here about happenings in the cargo world. Gee.... So many crystal balls on the loose, lately.

But right now it appears as if the cargo business is going gang busters, playing catch up from the 2008 global aerial transport meltdown.

Regulations/rules will kill the 742 soon, even if fuel prices don't. Well, maybe in the USA and in western Europe; but in Asia is where cargo rules, and the authorities there are not rabid about noise regulations and ageing airframes.

Still, everywhere I go I see classics, many with shiny new liveries. Believe what you may, but the classics just don't seem to have arrived at the end of the rainbow just yet. . . .:ooh:

[SNS3Guppy]

Very true. Put another way, those NWA airplanes will go back into service bought and paid, no lease payments, no loan payments, with a massive storehouse of spare parts to keep them running. A few upgrades and they're off and trotting.

Try that with a B744 or B777.