ABX Air

ABX Air

IATA GB ICAO ABX Callsign ABEX
Founded	1980
Fleet size	15
Destinations	183
Parent company	Air Transport Services Group, Inc.
Headquarters	Wilmington, Ohio
Key people	Joe Hete (President and CEO), Quint Turner (CFO)
Website	http://www.abxair.com

ABX Air, Inc., formerly Airborne Express, is a cargo airline headquartered at Airborne Airpark in unincorporated Clinton County, Ohio, United States, near the City of Wilmington.^[1] ABX operates scheduled, ad hoc charter and ACMI freight services, including overnight express small-package services and freight in the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico. It also provides specialist training, maintenance and engineering services and part sales. Its main base is Airborne Airpark^[2], the former Clinton County Air Force Base, located just southeast of Wilmington, Ohio, and owned by DHL.

ABX Air's main customer is DHL, and the vast majority of the freight it carries is for that company. Most of ABX Air's aircraft are painted with DHL's yellow and red livery. ABX Air participates in shipping, charter services, specialty training, parts sales and aircraft maintenance from a privately owned 2,000 acre (8 km²) airport that includes 1.24 million square feet (115,000 m²) of space.^{[citation needed]}

ABX also does cargo flights on behalf of Air Jamaica between Miami and the two Jamaican cities of Montego Bay (Donald Sangster International Airport) and Kingston (Norman Manley International Airport). One of their Boeing 767-200s routinely handles the flights, replacing the Douglas DC-8 types that flew previously. The aircraft fly with an Air Jamaica callsign of "Jamaica".

History

The airline was established in 1980 when Airborne Freight acquired Midwest Air Charter. It started operations on 17 April 1980. Airborne Express, as the airline was initially named, was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Airborne Freight of Seattle^[2]. ABX became a public company on 16 August 2003 as part of the merger of DHL and Airborne, in which DHL kept Airborne's ground operations and spun off its air operations as ABX. It employs 10,000 staff (at September 2005). ABX Air's common shares are traded on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol ABXA. In early 2007, ABX Air announced that it was in negotiations with All Nippon Airways to establish an ACMI agreement with All Nippon to begin flying freight within Asia. The contract would initially utilize two Boeing 767-200SF aircraft, and would be open-ended to grow from there.^{[citation needed]} The airline has 7,600 employees (at March 2007)^[2]. On 2 November, 2007, CEO Joe Hete and the ABX Air board of directors announced that the company has entered into an agreement to acquire Cargo Holdings International, the parent company of Air Transport International (ATI) and Capital Cargo International Airlines for a cost of $350 million.

On November 10, 2008, DHL announced the plan to terminate its business relationship with ABX because it was exiting the United States domestic market. Previous plans had been to keep U.S. operations by contracting them out to United Parcel Service.^[3]

Fleet

As of July 2009 the ABX Air fleet consists of the following aircraft:^[4]

Incidents and Accidents

An ABX jet damaged by fire at SFO in 2008

Wikinews has related news: Boeing 767 cargo plane seriously damaged by fire at San Francisco Threat received before Boeing 767 fire at San Francisco

On December 22, 1996, an Airborne Express DC-8-63F operating as Flight 827 conducted a test flight after undergoing modifications at Piedmont Triad International Airport. While performing a stall test the airplane entered into a real stall and the flight crew was unable to recover it before it crashed into mountainous terrain near Narrows, Virginia. All six occupants were killed.

On June 29, 2008, a week after the airline received a threat, a Boeing 767 parked at San Francisco International Airport was seriously damaged by fire as it was being prepared for flight.

References

• Gene G. Marcial (2004-09-27). "Why ABX Air Is Really Delivering". Business Week. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_39/b3901134_mz027.htm. 
• Ruud Leeuw (2006-04-20). "Airborne Express". Airlines Remembered. http://www.ruudleeuw.com/rem-abx.htm. 
• "ABX Air sees 2Q earnings drop". Business First of Columbus. 2006-08-10. http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2006/08/07/daily21.html?surround=lfn. 
• "ABX Holdings Announces Name Change to Air Transport Services Group". Air Transport Services Group, Inc.. 2008-05-16. http://www.abxair.com/atsg/pr2008-05-16.html. 

External links

• ABX Air