Pilot
says Amazon Air's contract airlines 'a ticking time bomb'
Pilots for the airline Atlas Air, which operated an Amazon Air flight that
crashed and killed all three of its occupants on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019, in
Houston, told Business Insider in the weeks before the crash that Atlas tends
to overwork its pilots.
* Pilots for the airline Atlas Air, which operated an Amazon Air flight that
crashed and killed all three of its occupants on Feb. 23 near Houston, told
Business Insider in the weeks before the crash that Atlas tends to overwork its
pilots.
* Thirteen pilots who work for airlines that Amazon Air contracts with have
told Business Insider that their pay and benefits fall below industry
standards.
* All but one of those pilots said that means pilots on Amazon Air flights tend
to be less experienced.
* "It's a ticking time bomb," Robert Kirchner, an Atlas pilot and
executive council chairman of Teamsters Local 1224, told Business Insider weeks
before the crash.
It's still unclear what caused the Amazon Air crash that killed all three of
its occupants on Saturday, but pilots for the airline Atlas Air, which operated
the flight, told Business Insider in the weeks before the crash that Atlas
tends to overwork its pilots.
"They don't recognize pilot fatigue," captain Robert Kirchner, an
Atlas pilot and executive council chairman of Teamsters Local 1224, told Business
Insider weeks before the crash. "They think it's people goofing off. We
have to constantly show them some of these schedules. Ninety-nine percent of
the time, we're able to prove to them that this is a fatiguing schedule."
Atlas has contracts with Amazon, DHL and other carriers.
Thirteen pilots who work for airlines that Amazon Air contracts with have told
Business Insider that their pay and benefits fall below industry standards. All
but one of those pilots said that means pilots on Amazon Air flights tend to be
less experienced. Most of these pilots asked to speak on condition of anonymity
for fear of retribution.
"It's a ticking time bomb," Kirchner said weeks before the crash.
Amazon and Atlas Air did not respond to requests for comment.
aturday, was flying from Houston to Miami. According to a statement from the
Federal Aviation Administration, the plane lost signal about 30 miles southeast
of Houston George Bush International Airport. It fell from 6,525 feet to 3,025
feet in 30 seconds, according to FlightRadar 24. The FAA then issued an alert
notice.
In its final seconds, it was descending at a rate of 30,000 feet per second,
according to FlightRadar 24. There was no distress call.
It's not yet known what caused the Feb. 23 crash. But Atlas Air has had a
number of incidents in the past year.
In October, a Boeing 747 cargo plane operated by Polar Air, a subsidiary of
Atlas Air, veered off the airway at the Northern Kentucky Airport. It came to
stop on soft ground. No other plane on that day had a similar landing.
An Atlas Air Boeing 767 cargo airline had a hard landing in July at the
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, airport. Creases around the fuselage and
"substantial damage to the aircraft" was found after the flight
inspection.
For decades, Amazon moved its cargo through air-cargo services from UPS, USPS
and FedEx.
But in 2015, Amazon started taking air cargo in-house. Air Transport Services
Group and ABX Air told Motherboard that they were leasing two cargo jets each
to Amazon, which was building an air hub at Ohio's Wilmington Air Park.
Four years later, it's becoming clearer that that air-cargo network is crucial
for keeping down the company's ballooning shipping expenses. Year over year,
Amazon's worldwide shipping costs jumped by 23% in Q4 2018, from $7.4 billion
to more than $9 billion.
Amazon now has 40 Boeing 767s, with plans for 10 more. Last year Amazon
expanded two-day-shipping availability to "almost anywhere" in the US
with its additional Amazon Air capacity. Free one-day shipping is now
accessible for the "majority of Prime members in the US." Three
additional Amazon Air gateways are underway in Ohio, Illinois, and Texas.
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