Air Cargo News

     It’s not with just a little consideration that we salute Atlas Air as Air Cargo News 2002 Airline of the Year.
     Let’s face it, there are almost as many heroic stories in the past twelve months to be told as there are airlines flying around out there.
     Atlas Air by exact definition is not even an airline, but rather a phenomenon that company founder, the late Michael Chowdry invented.
     Atlas is an ACMI—Aircraft-Crew-Maintenance-Insurance operator.

The late Michael Chowdry (left), founder of Atlas and Richard Shuyler (right), current CEO of Atlas. While Atlas, post 9/11 struggles (like everyone else), Rick & Co. show the guts to persevere.

     But Atlas Air and specifically its CEO Rick Shuyler gets our nod as air cargo’s best for the company’s tenacious, tough and never say die attitude during what we are sad to confirm, is the worst year in commercial aviation history.
     But before we go any further let’s back up a moment.
     Just as the century turned its first full year, Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings successfully completed an IPO that made its founder, the aforementioned Michael Chowdry, and some others very wealthy.
     The company began Year 2001 full of hope with a billion dollar market cap, a fleet of B747-400s and other aircraft at work on lease or ACMI all over the place, and a wish-list of new ideas yet to be acted upon.
     At that point just having come out of the go-go 1990s, the horizon seemed endless.
     But then Mr. Chowdry, who held his pilot’s license and regularly enjoyed a few hours aloft in any number of exotic collectible aircraft he kept at a base near the old Atlas headquarters in Golden, Colorado elected to take a short hop with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal.
     All things considered, as Atlas was about to release financial figures, contact with a writer from the most influential financial newspaper on the planet, that included a brief jaunt into a crystal blue Rocky Mountain sky seemed like a good idea.
     But just like a black cloud which suddenly turns day into night, in less than an eye blink after take off, Mr. Chowdry and the reporter died instantly as the plane crashed.
     Everything terrible that happened to Mike Chowdry occurred in a moment. It’s likely that neither man ever knew what hit them.
     But up in Purchase, New York at Atlas Air headquarters, life had to somehow continue amidst unbelievable shock and grief, not to mention the empty hole that faced Atlas Air itself.
     Mike Chowdry had assembled a first class team. But as far as anybody knew, Mike Chowdry was the show at Atlas. He was the indispensable creator, the drive and ideas, the reality and heart and soul of a great international company, fielding more than 34 B747s all over the world.
     “At first I looked out my window and everything was the same,” recalled Rachael Berry, director of corporate communications.
     “But then after a short while, I realized that there were no footsteps in the hall. No Michael Chowdry with another idea. He was the excitement and the drive and the sense of adventure we all felt.”
     But as bad as early January 2001 was for Atlas, nothing and probably no one could have prepared the company for 9/11.
     Fallout of that horrific attack continues right now, as companies once thought invincible, from IBM to McDonalds and elsewhere, in every part of the business sector continue a spiral downward driven by a kind of bottomless lack of confidence and sureness of what lies ahead.
     But despite the uncertainty, here in 2002 Atlas Air has taken delivery of aircraft and acquired Polar Air Cargo, an acquisition most industry wags thought was one stupid thing to do.
     One of the positive stories of 2002 is the emergence of Polar Air Cargo as a prime-time quality resource. In fact, that recent awarding of frequencies into Hong Kong will be used for fifth-freedom flights by Polar to build up activity via Hong Kong, Manila and elsewhere with the carrier’s growing presence at Inchon, South Korea.
     Simply put, Polar Air Cargo under Atlas Air is the come-back cargo airline of 2002, and maybe will turn out to be one of the great turnarounds in recent memory.
     Reliability for service delivery, shipped as booked and other critical benchmarks are on a dramatic upswing at Polar.
     Customer satisfaction has naturally followed suit. Even operators who were licking their chops to add flights to Hong Kong are laying back, in no small part because now Polar is a for-real air cargo resource powerhouse.
     Sure, the dock strike coupled with the frenzy of business that is mainland China today, has helped Polar.
     Likewise, the idea of acquiring Polar may have been thought of initially during the era of Mike Chowdry at Atlas.
     But the action to take a calculated risk at a tough time, was very much a post-Michael Chowdry decision.
     The last laugh, if there need be one, appears to go to Atlas which very well could see a big part of its future success because of its Polar acquisition.
     The other thing about Atlas we like is that in this year of big losses, and questionable accounting practices at Arthur Andersen after that company helped count Enron as the biggest bankruptcy in history, Atlas needed to confront Andersen’s work on the Atlas books.
     Atlas management bit the bullet, dumped Andersen, and when their new accountants found problems, Atlas stood up, took the heat and moved on.
     Now these financials could still jump up and bite a bit. But the way Atlas CEO Richard Shuyler handled the event and assured everyone that the situation was/is under control, continues to impress.
     For us here watching air cargo history unfold, the addition of Jeffrey Erickson as company president at Atlas is also an interesting, even intriguing move.
     Once upon a time during the early 1990s, at TWA, Jeffrey Erickson and Richard Shuyler were a potent one-two punch at Trans World Airlines (TWA) assuming command of that airline after it had been systematically looted by Carl Icahn.
     For several years, the duo kept TWA flying against what we know now were impossible odds.
     But they did it at TWA with smart, savvy and prudent handling of everything, including what little money the carrier had, to dealing with a large and mostly unhappy labor force and a fleet of aircraft that had seen better days.
     Will Atlas Air make it in the 21st Century? After what happened to United Airlines earlier last month, it is fair to say, nothing is for certain.
     But we like Atlas. They are big and tough enough and even more, they seem to want to win. Often in history, people with a will to do what might seem far-fetched, even impossible, surprise everybody.
     Just as we finished this salute, Atlas announced a contract for one of their B747-200s which will go into service at Korean Air Cargo.
     Now we know Ken Choi, the old cargo pro at KAL Cargo, who signed the contract. If Ken is signing up for Atlas services, that indicates to us, as business crawls back and the cream rises to the top, then the company and idea that Mike Chowdry began, and courage continued, will be leading the way.