ABX Air

ABX Air, Inc., formerly Airborne Express, is a cargo airline headquartered at Wilmington Air Park near the City of Wilmington, Ohio, USA.[4] ABX Air operates scheduled, ad hoc charter and ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance) freight services. It also provides flight support services and training. ABX Air is owned by Air Transport Services Group.

ABX Air
IATA ICAO Callsign
GB ABX ABEX
FoundedApril 1980
AOC #ABXA001A[1]
Hubs
Fleet size37
Parent companyAir Transport Services Group, Inc.
HeadquartersWilmington Air Park
Clinton County, Ohio, U.S.
Key peopleDave Soaper (President)[3]
Websitewww.abxair.com

ABX Air's main customer is DHL, and the majority of the freight it carries is for that company. Many of ABX Air's aircraft are painted with DHL's yellow and red livery.

ABX also operated 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 handled the flights, replacing the Douglas DC-8 types that flew previously. The aircraft flew with an Air Jamaica callsign of "Jamaica".

History

The airline was established in April 1980 (1980-04) when Airborne Freight Corporation acquired Midwest Air Charter; operations started later that year. Airborne Express, as the airline was initially named, was a wholly owned subsidiary of Airborne Freight Corporation of Seattle. Apart from its core activity of cargo transportation, Airborne Express also performed airframe maintenance services to a number of aircraft types.[5] At March 1995 (1995-03) the company had 5,500 employees.[6] In January 1996 (1996-01), the company acquired 12 Boeing 767 aircraft for conversion to freighters.[5]

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 Air Inc. ABX Air's common shares were traded on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol ABXA. In early 2007, ABX Air entered an ACMI agreement with All Nippon Airways to begin flying freight within Asia. The contract utilized two Boeing 767-200SF aircraft.[7] In March 2007, the airline had 7,600 employees.[8]

On 2 November 2007, CEO Joe Hete and the ABX Air board of directors announced that the company had 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. The transaction was finalized on 31 December 2007,[9] and ABX Air was reorganized as a subsidiary of a holding company, later named Air Transport Services Group (ATSG).[10]

On November 10, 2008, ABX Air's largest customer, DHL, announced a plan to exit the United States domestic market.[11] Previous plans by DHL had been to keep its U.S. operations by contracting them out to United Parcel Service.[11] On 30 March 2010, ABX Air's parent company, ATSG, entered into new long-term agreements with DHL, under which ABX Air would continue providing airlift for the U.S. portion of DHL’s international network.[12]

Fleet
An ABX Air Boeing 767-200 on short final to Miami International Airport in 2013.

The ABX Air fleet consists of the following aircraft (updated at November 2020):[13]

ABX Air Fleet
Aircraft In Fleet
Boeing 767-300BDSF 8
Boeing 767-200BDSF 12
Total 20

Historic fleet

ABX Air operated the following equipment throughout its history:

Incidents and accidents
An ABX jet damaged by fire at SFO in 2008
  • On June 29, 2008, a Boeing 767 parked at San Francisco International Airport was seriously damaged by fire as it was being prepared for flight.[16] An investigation by the NTSB revealed that a design fault was to blame for the fire, allowing a short circuit between electric wiring and an electrically conductive component of the oxygen system.[17][18][19]

References
  1. "Federal Aviation Administration - Airline Certificate Information - Detail View". av-info.faa.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  2. "About Us". ABX Air. ABX Air. Archived from the original on December 6, 2015. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
  3. "About ABX Air".
  4. "Zoning Map Archived October 30, 2008, at the Wayback Machine." City of Wilmington.
  5. "World airline directory – Airborne Express (ABX Air)". Flight International. 151 (4566): 50. March 19–25, 1997. ISSN 0015-3710. Archived from the original on January 28, 2015. 
  6. "World airline directory – ABX Air (Airborne Express)". Flight International. 147 (4464): 44. March 22–28, 1995. ISSN 0015-3710. Archived from the original on January 28, 2015. 
  7. "ABX Air Enters Into a Watershed ACMI Agreement With All Nippon Airways Co" (Press release). ABX Air, Inc. May 1, 2007. Archived from the original on March 6, 2012.
  8. "Directory: World Airlines". Flight International. March 27, 2007. p. 45.
  9. "ABX Completes CHI Acquisition and Holding Company Formation" (Press release). ABX Air, Inc. December 31, 2007. Archived from the original on April 14, 2013.
  10. "ATSG : Air Transport Services Group, Inc". www.atsginc.com. Archived from the original on July 13, 2010. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
  11. "ABX Air, Form 10-Q, Quarterly Report, Filing Date Nov 14, 2008". secdatabase.com. Retrieved December 29, 2012.
  12. Air Transport Services Group, Inc Archived July 7, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  13. "Our fleet". ABX Air Services. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  14. Ranter, Harro. "Accident description". aviation-safety.net. Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved February 24, 2010.
  15. "Uncontrolled Flight into Terrain, ABX Air (Airborne Express) Douglas DC-8-63, N827AX, Narrows, Virginia, December 22, 1996" (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board. July 15, 1997. NTSB/AAR-97/05. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
  16. Kaminski-Morrow, David (June 30, 2008). "PICTURE: Fire badly damages ABX 767F at San Francisco". London: Flightglobal. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
  17. Croft, John (June 30, 2009). "NTSB: FAA, ABX share blame for 767 fire". Washington DC: Flightglobal. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016.
  18. Hradecky, Simon. "Accident: ABX Air Cargo B762 at San Francisco on Jun 28th 2008, on fire while parked, no arson". Aviation Herald. Retrieved February 24, 2010.
  19. Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 767-281SF N799AX San Francisco International Airport, CA (SFO)". aviation-safety.net. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
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