Atlas Buy Out

Why? What is Apollo?

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Is this why a good number of Atlas 747s are showing up to my base here at MZJ for scrapping? One more showed up just the other week.
 
Is this why a good number of Atlas 747s are showing up to my base here at MZJ for scrapping? One more showed up just the other week.
Probably just getting worn out. They would rather have them flying and making money.
 
Apollo isn’t known to be a chop shop, so honestly I’m not terribly worried. They own a huge portfolio of name-brand companies that do just fine. They bought Sun Country a few years back and improved them considerably.

As far as Atlas scrapping 747s, we’re honestly so busy we don’t have the lift to keep up. Three more 747-8s coming online this year.

I’ve been here almost 10 years, and all the general talk of Atlas shrinking, parking jets, becoming a leasing company, etc. have never found any footing in reality. Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, but as long as I’ve worked here we’ve only grown and made more money. ‍*shrug*
 
Is this why a good number of Atlas 747s are showing up to my base here at MZJ for scrapping? One more showed up just the other week.
Atlas and Polar both got some of their 747-400s new in the mid to late 1990s, which was just after the initial backlog to major carriers a few years after deliveries started. I haven't looked it up, but I'd imagine a significant portion of the -400 fleet is 25 years older or more. It seems that sadly modern jets don't tend to live on like the DC-9, 727, ect.
 
Apollo is a behemoth firm with deep pockets. Owns a lot of airplanes; underwriting part of United's fleet:


They bought SY in 2018, IPO three years later. At it's high point the valuation was about 10x what they paid. Also, CEO and Apollo dumped loads of shares while employees who bought shares were still locked in (very nice of them. Apparently they can do that.)

Normally what Apollo does is buy companies that they believe they can turn for a profit in something like 5 years. They aren't a long-term firm. For us it was less. Depending on when they think they will get the most value, that figure can obviously float around.

Suffice to say they (Apollo and Jude) are a Machiavellian, greedy type of firm. Atlas pilots are scarcely a number on a page to them. That's the reality of what we lived through. Having said that, we made out very well because of it. In our case, we were not a profitable airline, in large part because we leased almost all of our aircraft. Apollo's pockets were deep enough that we were able to purchase loads of airplanes, and grow and grow. Through that we managed to be the only profitable passenger airline in the world during COVID* and we have experienced and continue to experience fleet and pilot growth. We are probably the only national carrier where direct-hire captain is teetering on the edge of being a possibility, at this point(?) Anyway, the success, Machiavellian as it were, ended up being very good for our pilot group.

What would they do with Atlas if the purchase goes through? I have no idea. For us it was roughly 5 years to flip or IPO, and because of the market at the time it ended up being a very profitable IPO. Does that fact that Apollo and Amazon still own a big chunk of SNCY have anything to do with this? Regardless, welcome to the Apollo/Amazon capitalism club. Buckle up.


*thanks to the help of cargo and stimulus money, but some people still really like saying it, because they can
 
Atlas and Polar both got some of their 747-400s new in the mid to late 1990s, which was just after the initial backlog to major carriers a few years after deliveries started. I haven't looked it up, but I'd imagine a significant portion of the -400 fleet is 25 years older or more. It seems that sadly modern jets don't tend to live on like the DC-9, 727, ect.

We’re not sending anything to MZJ for scrapping. Not sure why he thinks that. Looking at the schedule, everything we’ve sent there recently has flown out. The one that was sent a couple weeks back is scheduled to fly out in a few weeks.
 
This may sound jaded, because it is:

Sitting here thinking that Apollo saw you guys' contract and thought "yeah, we can make money off these guys' work!"
 
This may sound jaded, because it is:

Sitting here thinking that Apollo saw you guys' contract and thought "yeah, we can make money off these guys' work!"

Sorry, not following. We’re having serious attrition issues due to our CBA, which needs to be rectified if we’re going to compete.
 
We’re not sending anything to MZJ for scrapping. Not sure why he thinks that. Looking at the schedule, everything we’ve sent there recently has flown out. The one that was sent a couple weeks back is scheduled to fly out in a few weeks.

Interesting. 465MC is sitting in the south scrapping section, south of our hangar. Seems to be more than enough ramp space to park it. Maybe just parked there temporarily. Seems to only be missing engines.
 
Sorry, not following. We’re having serious attrition issues due to our CBA, which needs to be rectified if we’re going to compete.

Think of the regional whiplash program. Then think of places like Amazon and Apollo hunting for third parties who have low pilot pay/poor rules in order to be able to seek out the lowest bidder. That's what I was getting at.
 
We’re not sending anything to MZJ for scrapping. Not sure why he thinks that. Looking at the schedule, everything we’ve sent there recently has flown out. The one that was sent a couple weeks back is scheduled to fly out in a few weeks.
Ah OK interesting. I was there this time last year and didn't see many of your birds out there, figured with all the used 744s out in the desert for cheap, maybe the 96-2000 deliveries are going to become spares.
 
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