News / Atlas hits out as rival carrier WGA applies for China-US freighter service

Western Global Airlines, the ACMI carrier founded in 2013 by Southern Air’s Jim Neff, has applied to operate scheduled services between China and the US for one particular customer.

The airline applied to the US Department of Transportation last month, claiming that while it would be happy to operate a charter service for the customer between the US and Hong Kong and China, “due to the policies of those governments, [they] are not permitted as charter flights”.

WGA added: “The operations planned by Western Global will be under a contract to a customer that urgently needs widebody freighter service on a weekly basis at both Hong Kong and certain points in China.

“The customer has determined that the service available in the market is inadequate for its purposes, and has urged Western Global to make arrangements at the earliest possible date to begin this service. The mode of operation, however, is precisely the same as the carrier operates for its other customers.”

Western Global, which operates 11 MD-11Fs and two 747-400Fs, revealed that its net income was $13m last year. It said the first year of the new operations would cost $3.2m, or $800,000 each quarter, plus start-up costs of $45,000. It would make $4.5m in the first year from the scheduled service, or $376,042 a month, leaving $1.3m in profit contribution for the year.

The application has put it at odds with rival Atlas Air, which claimed that the proposed services would “constitute a substantial change in operations”.

It said the DoT should “carefully examine this applicant’s financial fitness information, including the propriety of a marginal cost analysis that excludes all aircraft and crew expenses, to ascertain whether it meets applicable financial fitness standards”.

Western Global, in turn, said it had submitted financial fitness information, but in fact, there would be no changes in the operational sense. It was only seeking authority, it said, because of “the peculiar rules” of the Chinese and Hong Kong civil aviation authorities.

“Atlas is clearly less interested in the department’s enforcement … than it is in delaying, or suppressing altogether, additional US carrier competition in the Asian all-cargo market,” it said.