1. Currently Covid is decimating the number or crews available. Previously in the pandemic, it impacted manning for us, but was a bit more manageable - many flew extra, trips were extended, it became very lucrative.

2. The amount of cargo business had been growing prior to the pandemic, but when the pandemic hit, it grew in an order of magnitude - some of which was due to pax airlines not flying and internationally all those pax flights used to have bellies full off freight. - we captured a huge amount of that business in the short term and much of was captured for the future as well.

3. As the pandemic continued, more people are shopping on line, we see more demand, coupled with the supply chain issues.

4. There has been a projected pilot shortage for yrs (retirements and few military pilots to hire from) pilots and we are now in the middle of it, exacerbated by the pandemic and for cargo flying, the huge increase in demand.

5. On top of available pilot rolls getting reduced by the current omicron wave, our pilots have been working at high levels of productivity for almost 2 yrs now. Usually, we see the highest levels of volume from Thanksgiving to Christmas - we call this “Peak”, but since Mar 2020, we have been at “Peak” levels everyday. Pilots are getting burned out, myself included. I haven’t flown much “extra” since the summer. It gets tiring, especially international with all
of the restrictions, lockdowns, testing, etc. it’s just not as “fun” anymore, and fatigue calls are up.

6. We are also in contract negotiations and have been for 8months now. Our current contract is 6 yrs old and became amendable in early Nov. and many are not interested in doing more than the bare minimum until we have an agreement. The company actually asked for some contractual relief this week to try alleviate some manning issues and the union leadership refused, outside of the current negotiations. Solid decision, if you ask me.

Add it all up …..