BA World cargo

The actual problem wouldn’t just be a foreign carrier operation, it would be a non-Eu member states carrier operating this service if there was another aircraft available to do this work from an EU member state.

I stand corrected!

During the first half of this year, BA did lease a fourth aircraft, a B747-200 N528MC, directly from Atlas on a temporary basis (http://www.adamrowden.co.uk/image.asp?id=704), but even this caused unrest in the British cargo industry – who’s general opinion is that the BA cargo contract should be fulfilled by UK registered airlines and aircraft.

The actual problem wouldn’t just be a foreign carrier operation, it would be a non-Eu member states carrier operating this service if there was another aircraft available to do this work from an EU member state.

The object of this is to protect EU jobs, so if say CargoLux had a B744F avail for a months contract at to cost of, say £15,000 per block hour (for sake of argument), and a Russian outfit had an aircraft capable of filling the contract, but due to lease rates / crew costs / mx costs etc cost only £10,000 per block hour – who would you use?

It’s quite interesting to see this in operation and say when somebody like Emerald / Channex / BAC Express (going back a few years) wanted to lease a non-EU AN26 to cover for a bust F27/A748/ATR size aircraft, they had to ask all the other UK operators and confirm to the Dept of Transport that there was no availability before they would grant a permit.

As Agent_K says, most of BA World Cargo freight travels as belly cargo on the airline’s passenger aircraft.

The Stansted operation consists of three B747-400 dedicated-cargo aircraft which are operated on BA’s behalf (using BA flight numbers and Speedbird callsigns) by a company called Global Supply Systems. GSS was set up in 2002 in a joint effort by Atlas Air and private British funds to fulfill the BA contract, after political pressures meant Atlas Air (an American company) could not fulfil the contract in it’s own right.

Previous to this, Atlas Air had in fact operated a B747-400 N495MC out of Stansted in full BA World Cargo livery (http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=17812), but this aircraft was repainted in 2002 and was the first aircraft to join GSS as G-GSSA.

GSS now operates three B744s (G-GSSA, B & C), of which all are leased from Atlas Air, and fly in GSS livery with “Operated for British Airways World Cargo” stickers on the nose (http://www.adamrowden.co.uk/image.asp?id=658).

During the first half of this year, BA did lease a fourth aircraft, a B747-200 N528MC, directly from Atlas on a temporary basis (http://www.adamrowden.co.uk/image.asp?id=704), but even this caused unrest in the British cargo industry – who’s general opinion is that the BA cargo contract should be fulfilled by UK registered airlines and aircraft.

Hope that helps!
Adam

I’m assuming you’ve been to http://www.baworldcargo.com/ for a start. It includes their schedule etc so you can get a feel for the dedicated freight services. As pointed out above, BA World Cargo carries most of its cargo as bellyhold freight. You might have been better picking a true giant in the freight sector with a more independent stance, perhaps Lufthansa cargo, Singapore Airlines cargo, Air France cargo, KLM Cargo or similar.

Don’t forget the tie-up with Global Supply Systems

http://www.jethros.i12.com/fleets/fleet_listings/global_supply_systems.htm

BA World Cargo is an entity within the British Airways group, most of it’s cargo is flown using the main line fleet. It has operated a dedicated Cargo operation out of Stanstead with up to 4 at one point wet leased Atlas 747-400 freighters in BA livery, although I do not think they are operated in BA livery now.