More info on Amerijet’s US heavyweight freight service

As Cargo Facts has previously reported, US-based Amerijet is developing air hubs at Rickenbacker Airport in Columbus, Ohio (LCK) serving the Eastern US, and Reno/Tahoe International in Nevada (RNO), serving the West. You can click here to read our original story, but the short version is that Amerijet said it planned to feed cargo to and from the hubs by road, and operate a single 767 freighter on the 1,950 mile route between the hubs daily.

Amerijet has now clarified that the road feeder service will operate to/from the Columbus hub and five cities in the Eastern US (Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark, and Atlanta); and to/from the Reno hub to four cities in the Western US (Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix).

Most of the distances involved are relatively easily covered in a single day by truck, although some, like Seattle-Reno (700 road miles) and Phoenix-Reno (740 miles) will push the one-day envelope. Nonetheless, Amerijet says origin-to-destination times will be 1 – 2 days, and that customers will “benefit from late local cut-off times, typically between 7-9pm, and early recovery times, including Saturdays.”

In addition, the new network will also connect to Amerijet’s Miami Hub, allowing customers to move freight between the carrier’s domestic and international routes.

As we have previously reported, Amerijet signed an agreement with Cargo Aircraft Management (CAM, the leasing arm of Air Transport Services Group) to lease two 767-300Fs for a term of six years, beginning in the third quarter of this year. Amerijet currently leases three 767-200Fs from CAM, and one of those will be returned early as part of the agreement, while the leases on the other two were extended by eighteen months, through 2019.