WILMINGTON (TDB) -- The trade publication Air Cargo World suggests Ohio officials were less than vigilant last year when they approved a $270 million economic-development bond package for DHL. The money was an incentive meant for the German-owned package carrier to expand its private airport hub in Wilmington in SW Ohio. Now the German firm plans to abandon the site, leaving at least 8,000 jobs in the lurch:
"DHL will be under pressure to repay $270 million in bonds the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority sold in March 2007 to back DHL's expansion and upgrade of the Wilmington hub. DHL has 40 years to repay the state. DHL also was required to continue its debt payments at the Cincinnati airport after the company left its relatively new hub there to consolidate express operations in Wilmington."
The Cincinnati airport is in Kentucky. So Ohio screwed Kentucky to lure DHL away. Now DHL is about to do the same to Ohio, by switching its air cargo service to UPS, which has a hub in Louisville. At the moment, it looks like Kentucky wins after all and Ohio gets the shaft.
Proof to me that public/private partnerships, as in "Third Frontier" are, at best, useless
ReplyDeleteForty years to payitback? Where are these deals? I would like a little on those terms.
ReplyDeleteBut there is an opportunity here. Now that the airfield is available, how about a southern Ohio airport serving Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus with high speed rail to each of these cities from the airport. Could we screw Delta and CVG and demand IND type fares for the proletariat.
Dieter Schmied