Western Global Airlines (KD, Fort Myers Southwest Florida) is planning to venture into the scheduled cargo services market having specialized in ACMI/charter operations for and on behalf of other carriers since its establishment in 2013.
In its application to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for a Certificate of Public Convenience and exemption authority, Western Global said it seeks to conduct foreign scheduled transport of property and mail between points in the United States and China and Hong Kong and beyond.
"Western Global has operated charter flights in these countries, however, as their governments have very different definitions of what constitutes charter versus scheduled service than does the United States, the carrier has run into difficulties in securing traffic rights, particularly for operations on a regular basis," it said. "The carrier has been advised that it must seek scheduled authority from both the China Civil Aviation Administration and the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department. In order to do so, of course, it must first obtain scheduled cargo authority from the Department."
Western Global states the operations it plans to run will be under a contract for a customer that "urgently needs widebody freighter service" on a weekly basis at both Hong Kong International and certain points in mainland China.
According to the ch-aviation schedules database, multiple carriers currently serve the mainland US-China/Hong Kong market including Air China Cargo, Asiana Airlines, Cargolux, China Cargo Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Polar Air Cargo, and Yangtze River Airlines. Recently, National Airlines (N8, Orlando Sanford) was given DOT consent to begin its own scheduled US-China cargo flights from June 1 onwards.
For its part, Western Global currently operates a fleet of fourteen MD-11(F)s and two B747-400(BCF)s on global charter operations. In terms of current ACMI contracts, it supplies Allied Air (4W, Lagos) with three MD-11(F)s.
