ABX Air - History

History

The airline was established in 1980 when Airborne Freight acquired Midwest Air Charter. It started operations on 17 April 1980. Airborne Express, as the airline was initially named, was a wholly owned subsidiary of Airborne Freight of Seattle. 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. In March 2007, the airline had 7,600 employees.

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, and ABX Air was reorganized as a subsidiary of a holding company, later named Air Transport Services Group (ATSG).

On November 10, 2008, ABX Air's largest customer, DHL, announced a plan to exit the United States domestic market. Previous plans by DHL had been to keep its U.S. operations by contracting them out to United Parcel Service. 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.