Is anyone else excited to be going into the holiday season where both UPS and Fedex upgauge a lot of their regular cargo flights?  Given that this is our first holiday season with the new QOTS, it will be a fun opportunity to fly the 747 into a lot of places it doesn’t normally go, both through UPS up gauges and Fedex wet leases of 747s.

I remember last year around this time (when we were still in preview-mode for the Queen) looking at the interesting 747 flights that kept on popping up on flightaware and wishing I had a way to fly them...the next month and a half will be fun!

Dave Reage

And Atlas Air seems to take the lions' share of those too!!!  

I'm planning on several of these flights as well.  In this great day and age with not only outstanding paints from the PMDG crew to fly, you also have a choice from a few third party painters (ahem, hehe).

Atlas, UPS are both liveries I've painted if you need a few extra registrations to augment your default birds. 

And if you're into FedEx and need a Queen....Brian T painted an outstanding one...I think it was "beary nice!" LOL

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/517905-this-one-is-beary-good/

If you're a Lufthansa fan and a Frieghtdog, I also painted this one that I routinely fly all over the world:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/524163-wow/

Freightdogs, clear your schedules!  We have packages to deliver by Christmas!

On 18/11/2017 at 10:11 PM, regis9 said:

Is anyone else excited to be going into the holiday season where both UPS and Fedex upgauge a lot of their regular cargo flights?  Given that this is our first holiday season with the new QOTS, it will be a fun opportunity to fly the 747 into a lot of places it doesn’t normally go, both through UPS up gauges and Fedex wet leases of 747s.

Sounds really interesting; but what are up gauges and wet leases of 747's and how do you get to fly them?

Hope this isn't virtual airline stuff because I'n not into this flying.

On 11/19/2017 at 1:26 PM, Curtis Smith said:

And Atlas Air seems to take the lions' share of those too!!!  

I'm bidding to do a couple MEM-HNL turns next month. We also fly to Colgne and San Juan if I recall.

2 hours ago, walfob said:

Sounds really interesting; but what are up gauges and wet leases of 747's and how do you get to fly them?

Hope this isn't virtual airline stuff because I'n not into this flying.

The Up Gauge he is referring to is not how we reference it.  We call it peak.  It's the busiest time of the year for freight.  In fact UPS and FEDEX are so busy they need to charter aircraft for more volume.  This is either ADHOC (on demand) or contract.  It's not even necessarily wet leases.  Wet leases would infer you're utilizing your own crews and your renting the aircraft at a certain rate to include fuel.  What is actually happening is an ACMI carrier (say Atlas because we are by far the largest in the world) enters into contract with FedEx or UPS to operate a route.  We provide ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance) for that route.  FedEx pays us for the use plus they pay for the fuel.  So in a sense it's actually a dry lease with crew.  This has nothing Todo with VAs.  You can go to the MEM hub and see our planes out there.

11 minutes ago, thibodba57 said:

I'm bidding to do a couple MEM-HNL turns next month. We also fly to Colgne and San Juan if I recall.

Stop by KDFW on your way to PHNL and I'll buy the steak dinners to-go for the whole crew and travel with you to take the trash off the aircraft when we land in Hawaii!   Texas steaks....hmmmmmm! 

2 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

Stop by KDFW on your way to PHNL and I'll buy the steak dinners to-go for the whole crew and travel with you to take the trash off the aircraft when we land in Hawaii!   Texas steaks....hmmmmmm! 

I’ll pass it on.  But from what I hear FedEx has been springing for our dinner during peak to keep the crews happy.  So you have some competition :-)

I found an Atlas Air GTI 8123 KLAX-VHHH using a 744F on Flightaware. Maybe that is one these flights. Over the past three or four years I have probably checked Flightaware 50-60 times and never seen an Atlas Air on this route. I am doing the flight now.

3 hours ago, pcubine said:

I found an Atlas Air GTI 8123 KLAX-VHHH using a 744F on Flightaware. Maybe that is one these flights. Over the past three or four years I have probably checked Flightaware 50-60 times and never seen an Atlas Air on this route. I am doing the flight now.

It's a Cathay Pacific contract flight we do.  We have a few routes we do for them now.  They want us todo more.  We don't have near the manning for the demand of cargo now.

UPS PHNL-YSSY daily has currently changed from an MD-11 to 744F. 

Good stuff

On 11/20/2017 at 8:30 PM, thibodba57 said:

Wet leases would infer you're utilizing your own crews and your renting the aircraft at a certain rate to include fuel.  ....  FedEx pays us for the use plus they pay for the fuel.  So in a sense it's actually a dry lease with crew.  This has nothing Todo with VAs.  

In pax flying parlance, ACMI is commonly referenced to as wet lease. Little to do with wet hours and dry hours as known from GA

28 minutes ago, Fabo said:

In pax flying parlance, ACMI is commonly referenced to as wet lease. Little to do with wet hours and dry hours as known from GA

Depending on the contract signed, it can be either Wet or Dry.  However Atlas does not do Wet leases as far as I know.  Our customers pay for the gas.