N834US, USA Jet's third MD-88, scheduled for its first test flight today. Will probably take at least one more, and I'm guessing it will head up to YIP around the end of next week, based on past timelines. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/JUS ... /KDHN/KDHN

VCVSpotter wrote:

I think ABC's strategy is to try to play it safe. They don't want to anger Russia or the lessors, so they won't give the aircraft back (pleasing Russia), but they can tell the lessors that because of their government/cancelled Bermuda registrations, they can't fly them (and therefore won't, even within Russia), hence 'pleasing' the lessors. The airline is in a lose-lose situation and trying to make the best of it (from my pov).

Agreed. Good to try and keep the lessors onside, but it's a bad situation for them either way. With their international network impossible to fly thanks to sanctions, they unfortunately have no business. Insolvency can't be far away. It would be nice if at least the leased aircraft could be recovered by the lessor, but the Russian government seems to have made a political decision not to do so, even if it means the planes stay mothballed at SVO. There's no winners from this.

I mentioned in another previous post how SkyGates Airlines transferred two 747-400Fs to Silkway West (Azerbaijan). I'm not sure what the exact arrangement is (sale, Wet Lease or Dry Lease.....though I'm sure the sanctions would make that difficult), but they appear to be flying Silkway West's network without restriction. They're visiting places like Frankfurt without the planes being impounded.

It's too late now, but I wonder if something similar would have be possible for Air Bridge Cargo to do with GeoSky (tense Russo-Georgian relations aside), Aerostan or one of the Moldovan outfits. Obviously a much bigger task for the carriers who don't operate -400s or -8s.

Something interesting has been going on at Mombasa, Kenya these past few days.
The Transaviaexport 743SF EW-465TQ arrived from GRU and then departed only to do an air-return so remains there by the looks.
And now our friends at Aerostan have arrived there with ship 02 dropping in. Interesting both Aerostan machines were in Lombok, Indonesia yesterday.
I’d love to know what they are up to. Possibly delivering RAT test kits as that seems all the rage this month.

JetOneX 747-400F N575CL seems to be ready to leave for TPE any day now (for heavy maintenance). All engines are attached and there was a lot of activity around it today. Heard from a guy in TPE that it would ferry over this weekend but obviously these schedules are subject to change.

AirBridge 747-8F VQ-BFE ferried from HKG today heading to the US.

Toledo's hometown cargo carrier, Interjet West, bought two (ex-CO) 737-300s from West Atlantic yesterday. N569TR (ex G-JMCO), N578TR (ex G-JMCP). That doubles the fleet.

CX Flyboy wrote:

AirBridge 747-8F VQ-BFE ferried from HKG today heading to the US.

Does anybody know the specific airport? I might be interested if it's VCV....

Speaking of West Atlantic, they appear to be the new operator for SwiftAir's newest 737-800SF, converted by Commercial Jet in Dothan. First picture in the database for SE-RLJ, which was formerly painted in Compass Air Cargo colors at Dothan for a few months and then received a new paint coat. I presume that the West Atlantic titles were added during its brief stay at MMX after being delivered across the Atlantic, as those were not on there when it left Dothan. It's operating on flights from Madrid to both Tenerife and Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.


AND, N834US is scheduled for delivery to YIP for USA Jet today. Third conversion out the door for USA Jet in just a few short months

VCVSpotter wrote:

JetOneX 747-400F N575CL seems to be ready to leave for TPE any day now (for heavy maintenance). All engines are attached and there was a lot of activity around it today. Heard from a guy in TPE that it would ferry over this weekend but obviously these schedules are subject to change.

That’s great, appreciate the update. Any word on 297CL? She seems to have gone quiet after positioning to MZJ in early Jan.

CX Flyboy wrote:

AirBridge 747-8F VQ-BFE ferried from HKG today heading to the US.

FR24 shows it landing at SBD.

gdavis003 wrote:

N834US, USA Jet's third MD-88, scheduled for its first test flight today. Will probably take at least one more, and I'm guessing it will head up to YIP around the end of next week, based on past timelines. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/JUS ... /KDHN/KDHN

834 flew to Willow run this afternoon

DLNZ wrote:

VCVSpotter wrote:

JetOneX 747-400F N575CL seems to be ready to leave for TPE any day now (for heavy maintenance). All engines are attached and there was a lot of activity around it today. Heard from a guy in TPE that it would ferry over this weekend but obviously these schedules are subject to change.

That’s great, appreciate the update. Any word on 297CL? She seems to have gone quiet after positioning to MZJ in early Jan.

JetOneX 747-400F N575CL filed VCV-SBD 7PM - 7:23PM. Filed SBD-TPE 11PM - 3:54AM as JTN320.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n575cl
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/jtn320

No word on 744F N297CL.

VCVSpotter wrote:

JetOneX 747-400F N575CL filed VCV-SBD 7PM - 7:23PM. Filed SBD-TPE 11PM - 3:54AM as JTN320.
.

Looks like Gloyd's getting to fly a 744 to TPE!! There ain't just one ferry company around!

Talk about a breakup: looks like Steve took the "jettest.com" domain, while Gloyd's using "jettest.aero".

We seem to have a new B737 freighter operator. Non other then Buffalo Airways (of Ice Pilots NWT fame) is set to acquire their first 737. It looks like it will be a 35 year old -300BDSF, ex. Swiftair, TNT and USAir frame, currently carrying the reg. 2-ESKA while undergoing maintenance with European Aviation in Bournemouth.
Here's a little teaser video about it: https://youtu.be/Bn4eQek3sKM

And in the antique department, it seems that Skybus Jet Cargo purchased N155CA last week. This has been sitting engineless in Roswell for the last 10 years.

MO11 wrote:

And in the antique department, it seems that Skybus Jet Cargo purchased N155CA last week. This has been sitting engineless in Roswell for the last 10 years.

Wow, interesting. I hope this means that they have some more work lined up, whether it's with Amerijet or somewhere else.

I wonder what happened with N805SJ that they brought over from VCV to IGM and painted. Is it still at IGM?
I saw some rumours that they where about to fly it down to Peru or elsewhere in the South America, but I don't remember seeing any signs of that actually happening.

MO11 wrote:

And in the antique department, it seems that Skybus Jet Cargo purchased N155CA last week. This has been sitting engineless in Roswell for the last 10 years.

Perhaps its a parts donor for their 2 other birds in service

Looks like it is spring cleaning time at DHN. They seem to be ready to move a bunch of iron. In addition to the MD-88 turned over to USAJET last week, there are three more 737s finished and painted. Tunisia Express, Kenya Cargo, and the replacement Compass Cargo birds. Plus there are the two former SunExpress livery birds that came in sporting green cargo doors and needing paint now.

Interestingly, there was some guessing as to which bird N616AJ was, but it has been confirmed as the new Compass Livery. Now,...... if anyone can make heads or tails of that whole switcheroo, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Still don't understand why they painted a converted frame (N858AM) into compass livery, then stripped it and repainted it for West Atlantic. Then they turned around and repainted another frame into Compass livery. @gdavis003 and I thought we might understand when we were guessing they were both Blackrock assets. But it looks like we were wrong and they are very clearly from different lessors. ??

It's been surprisingly quiet on the freight ops side lately. With Shanghai going into lockdown, Russia becoming a pariah and transatlantic belly freight continuing to ramp up, I'm sure not making any predictions on the future right now.

One recent incident- SE-RLB (a CAM 767-232F, with the excellent C/N of 22222, LN 56) had a cargo smoke indication on a DUB-EMA run. Quite a short flight, I wonder how many cycles Star gets in per day.

But beyond that, aside from some minor glitches for Cargojet and Fedex, things seem to be running surprisingly smoothly. Let's hope things keep going that way.

How's the folks over at Western Global doing?

Spacepope wrote:

It's been surprisingly quiet on the freight ops side lately. With Shanghai going into lockdown, Russia becoming a pariah and transatlantic belly freight continuing to ramp up, I'm sure not making any predictions on the future right now.

One recent incident- SE-RLB (a CAM 767-232F, with the excellent C/N of 22222, LN 56) had a cargo smoke indication on a DUB-EMA run. Quite a short flight, I wonder how many cycles Star gets in per day.

But beyond that, aside from some minor glitches for Cargojet and Fedex, things seem to be running surprisingly smoothly. Let's hope things keep going that way.

They generally just do two flights a day, so an early morning ex EMA to somewhere like Leipzig, Dublin or Rome, sit on the ground all day, and then back to EMA in the evening.

Of interest today was Condor A332 D-AIYD operating for DHL on Leipzig-Shannon-Leipzig. Condor were operating 763s for DHL last year.

in more unfortunate news, N311FE (an MD10-30) is on its way to retirement in VCV https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N311FE

this brings the total fleet to 9

MCOflyer wrote:

How's the folks over at Western Global doing?

Oy. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

On the MD11 side:
411 SHV
412 HSV for 3 days
415 Flying
512 Flying
513 TPE heavy maint
581 SHV
799 Flying
542 HSV 3 days
513 SHV
545 Flying
546 SHV
781 (newish) Flying
783 (newest) Broken in HSV over a week.

So, 4 in SHV, some without engines, 1 in TPE Maint, and 3 sitting in HSV, at least one of which is clearly-broken. So 5 in "maintenance", 3 questionable, 5 Flying.

On the 747 side, 356 is in TPE. The other 3 are flying.

(For the uninitiated, SHV is their "maintenance" base. TPE is where, thankfully, they are having some heavy checks done. HSV, Huntsville, AL, is an important customer. Very-impressive to have your broken airplanes littering the ramp there.) You can have a good heavy-check on an aircraft, but if you then just run them until they break, MEL (or pencil-whip) the problem for eternity, and keep running them until they won't fly, that doesn't help.

So the short answer is, "Still a complete goatrope." And I am coming around to the thinking expressed by others that that isn't going to change until there's a change of ownership.

Gives you a sense of what it's like to work there:

https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f6a2abf&opt=0

wjcandee wrote:

Gives you a sense of what it's like to work there:

https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f6a2abf&opt=0

Ironic that one of the biggest scumbag operators flies the biggest maintenance hog of a jet. Even Ray Charles could see what would happen.

CoThG wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

Gives you a sense of what it's like to work there:

https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f6a2abf&opt=0

Ironic that one of the biggest scumbag operators flies the biggest maintenance hog of a jet. Even Ray Charles could see what would happen.

These guys bought jets from LH so their pedigree is solid. I hope one day nothing bad happens then it will be how unsafe and old the MD-11 is.

With the recent retirements of the MD-10-30’s I have a question. Why didn’t Fed Ex buy the MD-10-30 in bulk. They had a majority MD-10-10. After Fed Ex retires the MD-10 is that the last we will see of this type? Makes me wonder why ORBIS didn’t get an MD-11 Fed Ex has Ex DL MD-11’s with extremely low hours. They were only used 8 years after they were converted.

DL757NYC wrote:

CoThG wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

Gives you a sense of what it's like to work there:

https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f6a2abf&opt=0

Ironic that one of the biggest scumbag operators flies the biggest maintenance hog of a jet. Even Ray Charles could see what would happen.

These guys bought jets from LH so their pedigree is solid. I hope one day nothing bad happens then it will be how unsafe and old the MD-11 is.

Their pedigree meant nothing now. WGA now has it's greasy hands on them. The MD-11 is unreliable with the world's best maintenance. WGA is about as far removed from the world's best maintenance as is possible.

ASL orders 10 737-800BCFs (plus 10 options). This would bring ASL's 737-800BCF fleet to 40. https://newsroom.aviator.aero/asl-order ... inability/ The 737-800 freighter continues to dominant.

DLNZ wrote:

Interesting both Aerostan machines were in Lombok, Indonesia yesterday.
I’d love to know what they are up to.

MotoGP charters, flying all the equipment from Indonesia to Argentina for the next race, however things seem to go wrong:

https://www.motogp.com/en/news/2022/03/ ... ina/412004

More motorsport news, it would appear ever busy National have pick up one of the Formula 1 contracts (Gene Haas F1 team?). N729CA flew from Jeddah (JED/OEJN) to Avalon (AVV/YMAV) near Melbourne (via Malaysia), flying equipment in for next week's Australian Grand Prix.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n729ca

One of Qatar Airways' 748s flew a similar route earlier this week.

Alaska is converting two 738's to freighters. These will complement the three existing 737 freighters in the fleet N-word is there might be more being converted.

DHL organizes most of the F1 related freight charters. Most of this ends up being subcontracted to Atlas, but charters are done by Cargolux, QR Cargo, Singapore Airlines Cargo too, as well as a few others. I don't specifically remember when National has done it previously, but I'm sure they have.

Haven't been paying attention to the logistics side of Jeddah to Melbourne, but I did notice that Qantas flew an F1 Pax charter from Jeddah to London very early on the morning after the race (VH-ZNA). Thought that was a little odd.

738(SF) N299AS became G-SHRS and was delivered Shannon-Warton last week. Operated by West Atlantic for BAE Systems in BAE colours, and already in use ferrying Typhoon bits to Saudi. Replaces 733F G-JMCM.

So, it looks like the Astral 757 is back in HGR. Maybe ready to go overseas!

Sam Chui has a good recent video flying aboard one of Astral's 727s (not the one from Asia Pacific) from Kenya to Somalia. Pretty-cool, I have to say, even if I find Sam to be a little goofy sometimes. Takes guts to fly into Mogadishu; simple as that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nILL0AQVHJM&t=8s

N616AJ escaped DHN after conversion. Headed out in Compass AirCargo livery. DHN-BGR-SNN

One of our National 744s is on a strange route today: N919CA is en route from ATL to YTR currently (https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NCR ... /KATL/CYTR). It flew SUU-RZE (Rseszow, Poland) on a Camber mission, flew to LGG, likely picked up a load to take back to ATL there, and this is probably a ferry to operate for the Canadian military, would be my guess.

crownvic wrote:

can anyone identify te new operator of the ex KLM 744F that departed LHR yesterday for JFK? Nice to see a KLM jumbo in full colors minus logos at LHR!

VQ-BWL (ex KLM PH-BFW), Longtail aviation , flight 6T5502 : https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vq-bwl or https://flightaware.com/live/flight/VQB ... /EGLL/KJFK

wjcandee wrote:

MCOflyer wrote:

How's the folks over at Western Global doing?

Oy. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

On the MD11 side:
411 SHV
412 HSV for 3 days
415 Flying
512 Flying
513 TPE heavy maint
581 SHV
799 Flying
542 HSV 3 days
513 SHV
545 Flying
546 SHV
781 (newish) Flying
783 (newest) Broken in HSV over a week.

So, 4 in SHV, some without engines, 1 in TPE Maint, and 3 sitting in HSV, at least one of which is clearly-broken. So 5 in "maintenance", 3 questionable, 5 Flying.

On the 747 side, 356 is in TPE. The other 3 are flying.

(For the uninitiated, SHV is their "maintenance" base. TPE is where, thankfully, they are having some heavy checks done. HSV, Huntsville, AL, is an important customer. Very-impressive to have your broken airplanes littering the ramp there.) You can have a good heavy-check on an aircraft, but if you then just run them until they break, MEL (or pencil-whip) the problem for eternity, and keep running them until they won't fly, that doesn't help.

So the short answer is, "Still a complete goatrope." And I am coming around to the thinking expressed by others that that isn't going to change until there's a change of ownership.

Hi friends, life has got in my way these last couple weeks, so a few updates from my observations.
Something quite remarkable on the WGN side, as I've just seen a photo taken from weekend, of inside the SHV hangar. It shows ship 804 (ex-LH machine which arrived years (?) ago), all but ready to fly. 3 engines, the comment from someone I know suggesting she was ready for the paint shop and then into service. I thought this one was long gone, so a pleasant surprise.

In F1 and Moto GP news, looks like National have been called in to Tucumen, AR, to retrieve the Moto GP gear which got there via a circuitous TransaviaExport / Aerostan journey. National 936 is on her way down there as we speak.

National's 702 arrived in MEL again last night from ORD via HNL & NAN. Must have been a heavy load to need a stop at NAN also as direct from HNL is generally the case. This doesn't feel like F1 work to me, but I'll see what I can find as I'm off to MEL for the racing this weekend. A rare event compared to you lucky souls in North America with races in AUS/MIA, YUL & now LAS (in 2023).

EW465TW the Belarussian 743SF looks to still be stuck in MBA after it's air-return.

ER-BAS, the Terra Avia machine (ex-EW-556TQ) is busying herself running hard between HKG/SHJ/RUH.

Both Aerostan machines are hard at work as usual, between Asia & South America.

Saudia Air Atlanta Icelandic 747-4H6 TF-AMM exited storage in JED and positioned to SHJ. Looks like another preighter machine to join sister-ships TF-AAJ/K.

N757QM of Asia Pacific is back in the Pacific after about a month at SEM (Selma, AL) for maintenance. I'd love to know what they did there and see some pictures because I did not think that there was a 757-sized hangar there, nor a maintenance team that was capable of working on 757s, but it beats me. Can't find anything. Regardless, it landed in HNL on Sunday morning and is now scheduled to take a load to GUM tonight.

Was thinking about 757s and hadn't done a check-in on the ATI combi fleet in a long time.
751 - at WRI since Friday, has been all over the place recently, operating on normal runs to Thule, Guantanamo, and Ramstein (less normal) for the most part from the usual US bases in Jacksonville/Norfolk/Fort Dix and BWI
752 - currently at MCC since Friday but has been operating from SUU/HNL to the usual Pacific bases at Kwajalein and Wake Island
753 - was at ILN for multiple months, went back into service for some time in December, back to ILN in early January, flew ILN-MCC on 2/28 and must have broken down at MCC, ran a test flight last Friday and just operated SUU-HNL-KWA this weekend, probably filling in for 752
754 - has been used as a spare since January, flying out of ILN, working for a few days, and then headed back to ILN, flew ILN-NGU today after being there since 3/23

DLNZ wrote:

Something quite remarkable on the WGN side, as I've just seen a photo taken from weekend, of inside the SHV hangar. It shows ship 804 (ex-LH machine which arrived years (?) ago), all but ready to fly. 3 engines, the comment from someone I know suggesting she was ready for the paint shop and then into service. I thought this one was long gone, so a pleasant surprise.

Arrived June 2018. Almost 4 years ago. Sure this wasn't an April Fool's joke?

Good for them if they get it flying. Apparently, some of the others that came in for "maintenance" now have so engines, so probably a zero-sum game. Still, anything positive is positive!

Nice article in The Loadstar about lessors trying to get their 747 freighters back from Air Bridge Cargo. Most of this I've covered in previous posts, but there's a few particularly interesting bits in article:

AirBridgeCargo fleet starts to break up as lessors demand their aircraft back

The sad dismantling of a cargo airline is under way, as lessors circle AirBridgeCargo’s fleet. The carrier is treading a fine line between the demands of Russia’s aviation authority to keep the aircraft, while also attempting – in part – to satisfy lessors instructed to retrieve them.

BOC Aviation had three leases with AirBridgeCargo (ABC). One aircraft, worth $148m according to court documents, was leased for $1.2m a month but has been returned. BOC succeeded in retrieving it from Hong Kong Airport, which it claimed was an unsuitable place to store an aircraft, and has flown it to San Bernadino.

Despite an order by BOC on 5 March to ground its three aircraft in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Zhengzhou, ABC flew one to Moscow, while another was diverted to Dubai – where BOC tried to ground it again – before it went on to Russia.

“Moreover, we inform you that Russian aviation authorities issued the document requiring prior authorisation for any movement of any aircraft operated by any Russian carrier outside Russia. In this respect, [the] lessee must also obtain the approval of the Russian aviation authorities in order to be legally able to proceed as requested in the termination notice. We hereby confirm that the lessee makes all reasonable efforts to make everything possible to comply with lessor’s requests in accordance with the termination notice. We are also open to the discussion on the above matters at all times.”

BCC Equipment Leasing, meanwhile, has managed to retrieve three engines, but not the airframe and a fourth engine.

https://theloadstar.com/airbridgecargo- ... raft-back/

On one hand, what's the point in keeping an aircraft when you have no network to fly it on? OTOH I'd imagine that now is not a good time to get on the wrong side of the Russian government if one is living in Russia...

DLNZ wrote:

In F1 and Moto GP news, looks like National have been called in to Tucumen, AR, to retrieve the Moto GP gear which got there via a circuitous TransaviaExport / Aerostan journey. National 936 is on her way down there as we speak.

National's 702 arrived in MEL again last night from ORD via HNL & NAN. Must have been a heavy load to need a stop at NAN also as direct from HNL is generally the case. This doesn't feel like F1 work to me, but I'll see what I can find as I'm off to MEL for the racing this weekend. A rare event compared to you lucky souls in North America with races in AUS/MIA, YUL & now LAS (in 2023).

Regarding F1, lots of equipment seems to have been coming via Avalon this year:

2022 Mar 31 23:05 AEDT QR 8356 Kuala Lumpur (KUL/WMKK) B748 (A7-BGB) Qatar Airways Cargo
2022 Mar 31 22:20 AEDT N8 820 Penang (PEN/WMKP) B744 (N729CA) National Airlines
2022 Mar 31 20:40 AEDT QR 8084 Kuala Lumpur (KUL/WMKK) B77L (A7-BFC) Qatar Airways Cargo
2022 Mar 30 13:20 AEDT QR 8342 Kuala Lumpur (KUL/WMKK) B77L (A7-BFL) Qatar Airways Cargo

All routings originated in Jeddah

P.S. have fun at the Melbourne GP! I've been a few times, but my last visit (2020) wasn't a success for obvious reasons.

VQ-BGG 75PCF(ex N699AN) on it's way to Shannon this evening after maintenance in Tashkent. It's Aviastar, so a lease reposession.

Cardude2 wrote:

in more unfortunate news, N311FE (an MD10-30) is on its way to retirement in VCV https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N311FE

this brings the total fleet to 9

that's sad...this bird only came back from heavy mx in August. One would have thought it could fly longer...

And a 757F leaves service for good today (yes, it's DHL but still counts as a freighter) https://avherald.com/h?article=4f719c2d&opt=0

BHRN wrote:

Cardude2 wrote:

in more unfortunate news, N311FE (an MD10-30) is on its way to retirement in VCV https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N311FE

this brings the total fleet to 9

that's sad...this bird only came back from heavy mx in August. One would have thought it could fly longer...

I actually double-checked with another user and turns out it's not being retired, just stored. It will go back into service later and retired in December. Heres is the schedule of retirements:

N303FE 25 APR 22
N304FE 29 SEP 22
N306FE 31DEC 22
N307FE 30NOV 22
N311FE 31DEC 22
N313FE 31DEC 22
N316FE 31DEC 22
N318FE 31OCT 22
N319FE 31DEC 22
N321FE 31DEC 22

Spacepope wrote:

And a 757F leaves service for good today (yes, it's DHL but still counts as a freighter) https://avherald.com/h?article=4f719c2d&opt=0

Sucks. They were very-close to a safe landing. Looks like brakes locked up, among other things, towards the end of the rollout.

A.P. Moller-Maersk announced it will rename its Star Air subsidiary as Maersk Air Cargo and integrate its logistics offerings directly to customers under a single brand.

The company also will shift its airfreight hub from Copenhagen to Billund

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ocean ... e?p=416591