Freighter Contracts

[mmeteesside]

Hello all

I have long been interested in the night cargo business around Europe and the operations of the hubs, and flights into them. My question is do the integrators issue a tender of some description for flight routes or is it all done in-house so to speak?

I was curious as there are frequent changes in contracts for example the latest one I've seen was RAF-Avia's An26 being replaced between Leipzig and Ostrava with an ASL Ireland ATR72 (transferred itself from Switzerland/Farnair). Obviously this would be an upgrade in capacity and also aircraft age, now would RAF-Avia have been contracted for say 3 or 4 years and then when its up for renewal a new tender went out which ASL won? What happens when they need to up capacity in the middle of a contract?

Interestingly, ASL France are operating for Amazon at present, 6x a week with a B737-400F from Wroclaw-Doncaster-Kassel-Wroclaw - with rumours of further routes starting soon this may be one to keep an eye on!

Any more changes coming up soon?

[El Bunto]

Mostly tenders as far as I know.

Some of the operators work for mutiple 'rival' integrators; Swiftair have a FedEx feeder contract along with work for TNT and DHL.

On the other hand, Star Air narrowly re-won the UPS Cologne-based 10-year tender against ASL and West Air, and whilst they also do work for non-integrator Lufthansa Cargo the rumours are that UPS are very strict about their operations and proprietary processes and so forbid tendering for other similar work.

In Western Europe, Eurotrans and TNT Airways are sole-customer orientated but it's not reciprocated by the integrators; for TNT I believe the various affiliates ( Bluebird, West Air, Jet Time, Cygnus etc ) can bid for work. I don't know the exact mechanisms of it.

I'm sure an expert will be along shortly to correct everything I've said!

[El Bunto]

I wonder what the future holds for Swiftair, with the merger of FedEx and TNT.

The trunk routes would probably continue with FedEx aircraft but the thinner routes that Swiftair operates would seem to be a candidate for consolidation onto TNT's network; not much point running a Brasilia from East Midlands to Belfast to carry FedEx parcels when there are two 737s going at the same time.

[mmeteesside]

Thanks El Bunto, and sorry for the late reply!

I wonder if these tenders ever get made public (as per "normal" high value tenders)? It would be interesting to keep track of the networks more than anything. I know the most recent Royal Mail network (in the UK) was publicly tendered for.

Indeed it is going to be an interesting time when the Fedex & TNT networks merge, as there is bound to be spare capacity that can be got rid of through merging the two. That Swiftair E120 runs from Belfast to Birmingham, where it meets the 757 from Manchester to Paris. They also have early evening runs from Manchester (ASL ATR72) and Glasgow (Swiftair E120) to Stansted presumably to meet the USA flights.

[mmeteesside]

I see Cargoair (Bulgaria) have added another 737-400F to their fleet, most of which are based at Leipzig operating on the DHL network. Are DHL trying to thin out the numbers of 757s?

[mmeteesside]

DHL European flights are now operating under the DHK code and callsign, opposed to the BCS "Eurotrans" as it was until recently? Any idea why the change?

In other news it seems Sprintair now have an ATR72 on Ljubljana-Cologne for UPS

[El Bunto]

DHL European flights are now operating under the DHK code and callsign, opposed to the BCS "Eurotrans" as it was until recently? Any idea why the change?

As far as I know ( as an outsider ) all DHL European routes are internally planned and issued as DHK; Eurotrans file-off that prefix and stick-on BCS when they actually file the flight-plan.

Any particular flight in mind? The A300s all seemed to be on BCS codes this morning.