Air Transport Services Group has announced it completed its acquisition of Omni Air International on Friday, November 9.
According to a statement, the group said it had now taken control of Omni Air International (OY, Tulsa International) and its Omni Aviation Leasing and T7 Aviation Leasing units in a transaction valued at USD845 million, subject to customary adjustments.
Omni Air specializes in ACMI/charter passenger charter operations and is a key beneficiary of the US Department of Defense's Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) program. Its fleet includes three B767-200(ER)s, seven B767-300(ER)s, and three B777-200(ER)s. The B767s (with the exception of one B767-200 and one -300) are owned by Omni Aviation Leasing while T7 oversees the B777s.
"I'm looking forward to bringing Omni Air's aircraft assets and capabilities into the ATSG family of businesses," ATSG's Chief Operating Officer Rich Corrado said. "We regard their strengths as very complementary to ours including a broader base of government and commercial customers along with the addition of the Boeing 777 platform."
According to ATSG's chief executive Joe Hete, part of the rationale for buying Omni Air was that their fleet of B767s would provide a natural pool of aircraft for ATSG's P2F conversion model. As such, Omni could be equipped with younger B767s as its older jets are converted into freighters for induction into ATI - Air Transport International and ABX Air service.
"One of the key synergies in there was related to the fact that they operate the 767 and it provides a natural feedstock pipeline potentially i.e. buying new aircraft that don't fit our price target for conversion, running them through Omni, and then at some point in time later, when the value has been depreciated somewhat, putting them into the conversion process. So ... there's commercial opportunities that they believe are going unfilled," he said during a recent quarterly earnings call.
