Laptev,
I'll try to give you some research as to why I like this company so much...
Atlas is an air cargo company - they carry cargo, not people.
Atlas provides cargo services by arranging ACMI contracts with its customers. Atlas supplies the aircraft, the crew, the maintenance, and the insurance. The customer pays for everything else. Fuel, cargo,
landing fees, loading the plane,de icing, cargo handling, everything. Atlas basically shows up with the plane and flies it somewhere. The customer pays for all other operating expenses.
Another beauty of the contracts they enter is that the customers guarantee "monthly minimum aircraft utilization levels at fixed hourly rates and are typically in force for periods of one to five years." So no matter if the plane has 2 pairs of sneakers or 10,000 pairs of sneakers, Atlas is going to get paid the same amount. The maximum guaranteed hours of aircraft utilization that a customer is allowed to cancel is only 5%. Atlas makes sure that they get paid.
Another positive factor that I like is that they fly solely 747's. This makes aircraft maintenance much more cost effective. They outsource their maintenance to other companies (Mainly KLM). With only 1 major type of aircraft to service, all configured exactly the same Atlas is able to realize cost efficiences.
Employees:
"As of March 1, 1997 the company had 570 employees, 372 of whom were air crew members... The company believes that its employees' participation in the growth and profitability of its business is essential to maintain its productivity and low cost structure, and has therefore established programs for that purpose, such as profit sharing plans, the stock purchas plan, and a company percentage contribution to the retirement plan (401k). The company considers its relations with its employees to be good." So yes, the pilots are solicited by union representives, but Atlas pays well already, and they try to hire heavy aircraft pilots straight out of the military...
Management:
Some of they best I've ever seen:
Michael Chowdry: CEO since inception in 1992. Has been invlolved in operation, aquisition, financing and disposition of aricraft and aviation since 1978. According to Forbes, August 12, 1996: "During a
stint as an airline consultant, me made a quick $3.5 million buying seven 727's from Frontier and flipping them to Flying Tigers." Wish I could do that....
Mickey Foret: President of company. Atlas snagged him from Northwest.
Richard Shuyler: CFO came from TWA were he was Senior Vice President and CFO. Before that he worked at Continental.
They just hired a new human resources person too with tons of experience. Don't have that detailed info in front of me, however.
Now, Atlas has had a couple of problems lately. One of the planes they bought from Federal Express caught on Fire before it was delivered, so Atlas was flying one less plane than scheduled.They also missed earning by 3 cents a quarter ago, and the stock got hammered.
Atlas is now going after the rapidly expanding South America and Asia markets. They plan on operating an average of 17 aircraft in the first quarter of 1997. 18.9 in quarter 2, 19.7 in quarter 3, and 22.0 in quarter 4, for full year average of 19.4 which is a 30% increase over 1996.
They recently received Air Transport World Magazine's Cargo Development Award.
They have a $175 million dollar revolving credit facility for the purchase and conversion of aircraft.
Competition: The only other all cargo competitor I'm aware of is a company called Polar Air. Unfortuately, I do not know very much about them. All of their other competion is airliners, who also
carry cargo. Remember, startup costs are high - you just can't go out a buy a 747 and be ready to go in a couple of months, so Atlas has a nice head start on anybody else who tries to ship all cargo.
And the cargo industry itself is growing at about a 10% rate per year.
Well, I hope this is enough information for now. Let me know if you would like to know anything else, or better yet, call the company and ask them to send you some info. They will send you everything you
need to know. Their phone number is (303) 526-5050.
Hope this answers your questions....
Eric B. |
