Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). And our first question comes from the line of Alex Brand from Stephens Incorporated. Please go ahead.
George Pickral - Stephens Incorporated
Hey, guys, this is actually George Pickral for Alex. My first question relates to the dry leases that were defaulted on the 200s. Bill, you said they're going into the charter market. I guess could you talk or give a little color on your feelings on the strength of that charter market and how easy or difficult it will be to place those two aircraft?
Bill Flynn
Yes. Thank you, George. We think the charter market remains strong, particularly as we come into the next 6 month to 12 month period. A couple factors that underpin that. China, as I think all of us know has shut down or virtually shut down manufacturing operations in the month of August to clear the air for the Beijing Olympics. Now that postponed manufacturing that is going to need to come to market will now have to come to market in September and October and November, fully taking a month out of supply chain for freight that could have otherwise gone ocean freight.
But, I think, with the factories not really turning on until the end of the month that will buoy the normal seasonal fourth quarter demand for charter.
Then as we roll forward into quarters one and quarters two next year in 2009, there are regional markets, the Latin American markets for the fresh fruits and vegetables, the flower markets, the strong demand that exists, we think, throughout the year for product that needs to go to infrastructure type of investments as well as mineral and resource extractions. So our sense is that the Commercial Charter demand and the military demand will allow us to fully deploy the 200 assets that we have into the charter market at and better returns than we would find in other markets.
Jason Grant
And, George, just to put the fleet plan in perspective, we have three aircraft. We expect two of them to return to our operation. But, just to reflect on the points we made earlier, we did have two aircraft that we took out of the Classic fleet in the first half. We do have another third aircraft that we expect to take out in the remainder of this year. So, when you look at a baseline relative to the start of this year, we're actually still down Classic capacity. That's consistent with our plan. This is no sort of deviation from where we've intended to go with our fleet plan.
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