Global Crossing Airlines has sued Ascent Global Logistics for $30 million in damages alleging the former investment partner reneged on an agreement to steer air cargo business its way and instead assigned charter work to USA Jet Airlines, its expedited on-demand freighter…
bsidiary with a large roster of automotive clients. Ascent Global Logistics was the largest shareholder in Global Crossing, a startup carrier based in Miami that operates passenger and cargo charter service, until selling its shares to other investors last year
Despite an exclusive freight brokerage agreement to refer charter transportation requests to GlobalX, Ascent essentially froze out its partner from the ad hoc, expedited market in North America by only tendering a few token flights while giving USA Jet hundreds of flights, according to a complaint filed last month in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court. “Ascent knowingly and intentionally abused this position of trust and control. Rather than fulfilling its obligations as GlobalX’s exclusive broker under the agreement, Ascent embarked on a deliberate, concerted campaign to sideline, weaken, and inflict severe operational and financial harm on GlobalX’s cargo operations. Ascent perceived GlobalX’s modern, fuel-efficient Airbus A321 freighter fleet as a competitive threat to its own airline (USA Jet) and to the rates it could extract from the market,” Global Crossing said.
GlobalX earlier this year indefinitely parked two of its four A321 converted freighters because of severely limited demand that made it uneconomical to operate them. USA Jet Airlines has eight active McDonnell Douglas MD-88 narrowbody freighters, with an average age of about 35 years, one 36-year-old MD-88 and a 45-year-old Boeing 727-200, according to aviation databases. Ascent, which was spun off from Roadrunner in 2020, is owned by H.I.G.