Conrad Kalitta - shop till you drop!

[BaldyLochs]

Something every household should have..... He went out & bought 12 Boeing 747 freighters from Delta Airlines today.

 

[flapjack]

Something every household should have..... He went out & bought 12 Boeing 747 freighters from Delta Airlines today.

They'll look better with Kalitta Air livery on them.

 

[Dubs]

Thats great news. I just read the article "the worst 44 days" (I think it was called) and read about his two planes crashes in 2008. I was absolutely intrigued by it and would love to learn more about Kalitta Air.

 

[vegasnitro]

Conrad bought my Christmas gift early this year ... how nice of him!!!

All joking aside ... I start ground school in a few weeks ...

 

[Speed1288]

I guess Connie really does go all out on everything lol

 

[Jim]

God bless him!

I guess if this stimulus is 'gonna work, we're 'gonna have to do it ourselves!

That's a BIG BET on the world economy. Maybe Conrad knows something we don't know (I KNOW he knows more than I do<G>).

 

[you]

Good news Connie! Jack Roush still hasn't called me to fly for him so I'm still available. I've got all the ratings you require.

 

[mick]

'callsign connie; 44 tragic days' as found on website cargolaw.com.........
quite a read to say the least.....god bless you mr. kalitta.

going to take an educated guess here and say the (12) 747's are most
likely former red tail northwest freighters??

 

[BaldyLochs]

Yes, they're all former red-tailer's. They have a good home now. I can't imagine your fleet more than doubling in size overnight; I'd imagine some will replace the existing aircraft or maybe some will be parted out or sold. Then again he might lease them out to someone else as he has in the past. Maybe they've got a big contract in place and they need the additional aircraft too? I will say that historically Connie usually comes out on the winning end of a transaction like that though. Good for him & his employees. More jobs for Michigan - and that's a very good thing.

 

[Toejam]

Delta has been a struggling airline for years! My guess is Connie picked these up pretty cheap as far as 7-4's go!

 

[mick]

what an intriguing business; how this is a win/win for kalitta and delta
would be a story worth hearing.

don't know where northwest's freighters were based? MSP or DTW?
if in detroit; wonder if any hangers and/or other 'real property' is also
part of this transaction?

 

[DrRocket]

All of these jets are former Northwest cargo planes that have been in storage in the Marana Arizona boneyard for some time. They're all older model 747 dash 200s. A few of them have uprated engines, (Pratt Whitney JT9Ds) and they're likely to get back in the air. The rest (Some are over 30 years old.) will likely be parted out. He also reportedly bought 120 JT9D engines. With the airline market the way it is, and with Delta looking to get rid if Northwest property, he probably got a pretty darn good deal on everything.

 

[mick]

Delta has been a struggling airline for years! My guess is Connie picked these up pretty cheap as far as 7-4's go!

joe, delta is now the world's largest airline with their recent acquisition of
northwest - their international footprint is now increased with
northwest's former routes to asia and the far east; i do not believe
'struggling' is an appropriate term.

'cheap' is not the word i would select either; every airline hauls freight to one
degree or another - i would be interested to know.........

- did the sale come to kalitta? or did kalitta seek it out?
- did kalitta also acquire freight contracts from delta?
- what prompted delta to sell this portion of the business?
- were these (12) aircraft even repainted in delta livery? i would guess not

whatever the case - this is a great story - wish i knew more about it.

 

[mick]

All of these jets are former Northworst cargo planes that have been in storage in the Marana Arizona boneyard for some time. They're all older model 747 dash 200s. A few of them have uprated engines, (Pratt Whitney JT9Ds) and they're likely to get back in the air. The rest (Some are over 30 years old.) will likely be parted out. He also reportedly bought 120 JT9D engines. With the airline market the way it is, and with Delta looking to get rid if Northworst property, he probably got a pretty darn good deal on everything.

please dave,
northwest served the airline industry for many years; us MN's have flown them
countless times - i was sad to see them go.....please do not degrade their name

if the 747's were in boneyard; i can agree with you - those planes would have
been part of the overall purchase of northwest airlines; a part delta may
have wanted to rid themselves of?
but, i've seen northwest 747 cargo planes continually in service rite here
at MSP - at least as recent as 2 years ago if my memory is correct?

 

[DrRocket]

please dave,
northwest served the airline industry for many years; us MN's have flown them
countless times - i was sad to see them go.....please do not degrade their name

if the 747's were in boneyard; i can agree with you - those planes would have
been part of the overall purchase of northwest airlines; a part delta may
have wanted to rid themselves of?
but, i've seen northwest 747 cargo planes continually in service rite here
at MSP - at least as recent as 2 years ago if my memory is correct?

Sorry Mike. You're right to protest. I've amended my post. I really meant no disrespect to former Northwest employees. I have several as good friends. However, I have no respect at all for the management of that (now defunct) airline. It only survived as long as it did because of the dedication and hard work of the employees, many of whom have been since cut by Delta. I like to sit at Post Road and watch the air traffic, and I too am sad to see the big red tails gone.

As I mentioned, all of these are older 747s that have been sitting in Arizona for some time. Here is a list of them:

N623US 21705 6623 747-251B

N624US 21706 6624 747-251B

N616US 21120 6716 747-251F

N619US 21321 6719 747-251F

N629US 22388 6729 747-251F

N630US 21668 6730 747-2J9F

N631NW 23111 6731 747-251B

N632NW 23112 6732 747-251B

N640US 23888 6740 747-251F

N644NW 24177 6744 747-212F

N645NW 23736 6745 747-222B

N646NW 23737 6746 747-222B

As you can see, they were all surplus first generation 747s. Heck, they probably still have flight engineer stations and gyro panels. The ones you've seen lately are later models.

 

[Huge]

I had to pick up a toyota body at Kalittas new race shop earlier this year, and I spent a couple days at his old race shop, at the willow run airport around 1998, and it doesn't matter if it's his race teams, or his air company, he does everthing 100 percent. It was amazing to see them rebuilding these huge airplanes and engines.

 

[DrRocket]

I had to pick up a toyota body at Kalittas new race shop earlier this year, and I spent a couple days at his old race shop, at the willow run airport around 1998, and it doesn't matter if it's his race teams, or his air company, he does everthing 100 percent. It was amazing to see them reduilding these huge airplanes and engines.

It's good to know he does his own heavy maintenance. Most airlines now farm that out to Asian sub-contractors.

 

[Huge]

It's good to know he does his own heavy maintenance. Most airlines now farm that out to Asian sub-contractors.

That was 12 years ago. I don't know what his maintenance program is now. His race shop is not at the airport any more. He moved his racing operation a few miles away from the airport.

 

[.]

A good portion of those 747 freighters have only been sitting in Marana since November/December of last year...... so roughly 8 or 9 months. They were parked there when Delta completely shut down the "Cargo" division at the end of 2009, just before the FAA issued Delta their SOC (single operating certificate) Sure, they still haul cargo in their passenger jets, but they no longer have a dedicated cargo fleet.

This is a picture I took of Pinal Air Park in Marana Arizona when I was down there in late March for the Division 7 race in Tucson.

 

[.]

- what prompted delta to sell this portion of the business?

Northwest was the last passenger airline in the USA to operate a dedicated cargo division. When Delta took over NW, they decided to close down that part of the company.

- were these (12) aircraft even repainted in delta livery? i would guess not

None of the 747-200's were repainted in Delta colors, only the passenger 747-400's received new paint. Which is funny because when Delta put out a rendering of what the red tails would look like in Delta colors, they used N623US (one of the two last remaining passenger 747-200's) which was still in the early 90's "bowling shoe" livery..... it never even received modern Northwest paint.