UPS DC8 flying military charters

airbusfxr

Well-Known Member
Wow go to airlinepilotcentral and click on cargo pilots, our "retired" DC8s have been purchased and are flying millitary (high revenue) charters worldwide. Why did UPS step over a dollar and pick up a penny? UPS could have been making millions on these jets instead of selling for pennies. Davis, being an airline man, should have seen this revenue service but instead sold the DC8 for scrap and now someone else is raking it in. Well at least these long range, large volume, commercial jets are now being used for a valuable service commitment. To bad UPS is using long range MD11s for short hop flights and causing service failures around the system each day. Sad, or maybe I dont get the big picture.
 
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Shouldn`t this be in the Airline forum you requested the the BC create so that like minded and experienced UPSers can comment on it?
 

fr8dog

Well-Known Member
I knew it. someone stole my idea.I knew these planes would run mac flights forever. At least they're finally being used for what douglas invented them for. God bless the DC-8.
 

air_something

Angry Monkey - 2nd Order
None of UPS's DC-8's have been sold yet, but they will be over the next five months. Out of the 10 airworthy planes, only tail N803UP is currently flying as a lease to a domestic cargo operator, the other 35 or so will be scrapped.
 

airbusfxr

Well-Known Member
So the company that bought the 44 DC8s will only buy them to scrap them. Only 836 and 880 had high time, all the others have under 60k.
 

air_something

Angry Monkey - 2nd Order
Only 34 of them will be parted out and then scrapped, the other 10 are airworthy. This is a very educated guess partly based on the fact that most, if not all, of the 34 airframes will require c-checks including Ageing Aircraft inspections, engine and other component installations and replacement of time-controlled items. Another part is based on the fact that none of these airframes have a Major Repair and Alteration Listing, which is a nightmare of a project on planes that are 25-30 years old. That is also the main reason these planes were parked and why the FAA will not allow a ferry-flight for them.

Also, I don't know where you are getting your information but all 44 of the DC8's have over 60,000 hours on them. Tail 752 is the low-time airframe with 62K and 801 the high-time with 89K. And tail 836 was sold by UPS over a year ago.

For the curious or anyone who wants to bore themselves to death: Part 43 of the Code of Federal Regulations concerning Major Repairs & Alterations.
 
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D

Dis-organized Labor

Guest
Only 34 of them will be parted out and then scrapped, the other 10 are airworthy. This is a very educated guess partly based on the fact that most, if not all, of the 34 airframes will require c-checks including Ageing Aircraft inspections, engine and other component installations and replacement of time-controlled items. Another part is based on the fact that none of these airframes have a Major Repair and Alteration Listing, which is a nightmare of a project on planes that are 25-30 years old. That is also the main reason these planes were parked and why the FAA will not allow a ferry-flight for them.

Also, I don't know where you are getting your information but all 44 of the DC8's have over 60,000 hours on them. Tail 752 is the low-time airframe with 62K and 801 the high-time with 89K. And tail 836 was sold by UPS over a year ago.

For the curious or anyone who wants to bore themselves to death: Part 43 of the Code of Federal Regulations concerning Major Repairs & Alterations.

You may want to mention to those that "don't see the big picture" that many of the LRU's and those four things hanging off the wings still have significant value. Besides the high time and cycles, the costs of tecnical support and the absence of structural materials makes this narrow body, three crewed, four engined machine a money pit easily covered by 757's. MD's reliability drives the domestic operation.
 

unionman

Well-Known Member
Those looking for a rebound in consumer demand might take a peek at Dallas/Fort Worth International's Asian cargo figures.
Cargo tonnage to and from Asia spiked 38 percent in December from a year earlier, when recession ills took hold in earnest. Outbound cargo to Asian ports – what we ship there – rose an even healthier 42 percent.
"We just had our best December for Asian cargo," said Joe Lopano, executive vice president for marketing and terminal management at the world's third-busiest airport.
The increase is good business for the airport, which collects rents for the cluster of cargo packaging facilities on the airport's west side.
But it's probably a better indicator that activity in the regional – and perhaps national – economy has awakened, which could be good news for jobs.
A number of transportation observers and some economists watch cargo trends closely because they've proven prescient as a predictor of where the economy is headed.
"If it's a real and sustained trend, it could be a good indicator," said John Heimlich, vice president and chief economist for the Air Transport Association in Washington, D.C., which represents airlines.
Air freight increases at airports show "there's more manufacturing, and that bodes well for companies and could lead to an increase in employment," he said.
Because shipping by air costs up to 10 times more than slower shipping options, goods flown between Asia and the U.S. are frequently high-end consumer goods and electronics that are discretionary purchases.
The bigger volumes suggest demand may be tugging more goods from China and other big Asian manufacturers.
"If imports from Asia are going up, it says something about demand in our region," said Mine Yücel, senior economist and vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "If exports are also going up, it says something good about our local production."
Yücel looked at four years of Asian cargo data from D/FW and found that changes in the data – both up and down – tracked closely with employment trends in the region, lagging on average by about three months.
The caveat to the analysis: The degree to which cargo figures changed didn't precisely correspond to the degree of employment change.
"But it did seem to track with the direction," she said, adding that money collected by the airport from cargo landing fees and building rents helps to support North Texas jobs.
D/FW now features cargo service to 15 global cities and expects to add more because of its geography. Lopano said the airport can be a nice pivot point between South American markets and Asian and European manufacturing centers, as well as a centrally located hub to distribute goods through North America by truck and rail.
One of the most recent additions to D/FW is Germany's Lufthansa, which last year added alternating flights from Frankfurt to Mexico City and Guadalajara, Mexico, with both flights stopping at D/FW. On the way back east, the freighter stops at D/FW again and Manchester, England, before returning to Frankfurt. The "mini-hub" is a model that officials hope other cargo carriers try.
Lopano and his marketing team also bagged cargo service from Australia's Qantas Airways last year, though long-hoped-for nonstop passenger service to Down Under remains somewhat elusive, he said.
D/FW's total cargo tonnage – including freight flown in the bellies of planes that are not dedicated freighter aircraft – is up nearly 6 percent for the first three months of its current fiscal year and was up 24 percent in December from the same month in 2008.
Some economists say cargo trends can forecast trends in passenger growth at airports, and D/FW is already pulling ahead of its budgeted estimates for passengers. Traffic is up about 1 percent from the same three months of its fiscal year in 2008, before the recession and fear of H1N1 flu forced carriers to cut capacity sharply.
"I feel like we're in good shape," said D/FW chief executive Jeff Fegan, noting that the airport is ahead of its budget for revenue and that planned new flights by American Airlines Inc. and partner American Eagle will add more passengers in coming months.

quote="Dis-organized Labor, post: 685798"]You may want to mention to those that "don't see the big picture" that many of the LRU's and those four things hanging off the wings still have significant value. Besides the high time and cycles, the costs of tecnical support and the absence of structural materials makes this narrow body, three crewed, four engined machine a money pit easily covered by 757's. MD's reliability drives the domestic operation.[/QUOTE]
 
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