WILMINGTON, Ohio (AP) - The president of ABX Air said a plan by DHL to hire
United Parcel Service Inc. as its air cargo carrier in the United States is
expected to cost 6,000 ABX workers their jobs at a freight hub in this southwest
Ohio city.
ABX Air President John Graber told the Wilmington News Journal for a story
Thursday that ABX Air's night sort operations would be eliminated under the
plan.
Graber and other ABX Air executives have been meeting with employees to tell
them about the effects of the DHL plan if DHL succeeds in reaching a contract
agreement with UPS.
The night airfreight operations would no longer be needed because UPS has
its own system, he said.
"It's a huge impact in Wilmington and the surrounding area," Graber told the
Dayton Daily News for a Thursday story on its Web site.
DHL is the struggling U.S.-based express shipping unit of German postal
service Deutsche Post AG. DHL contracts with ABX Air to operate the hub.
Messages were left at DHL Thursday and at ABX Air, a unit of Air Transport
Services Group Inc., seeking comment from Graber. ABX Air spokeswoman Beth Huber
said he was unavailable.
Huber said DHL told ABX Air officials Tuesday that it was going to reduce
the aircraft it would need from the ABX Air fleet by 39 jets over a period of 12
to 18 months. She also said DHL said it was in negotiations with UPS, but that a
deal had not been completed and ABX Air couldn't speculate on it.
"If they do reach an agreement along the lines that DHL explained to us,
they would no longer need what we do for them in flight and sorting," Huber
said. "That's a big if, and it's not something that would happen immediately."
Graber told the News Journal that he projects ABX Air would have a work
force of about 900 to 1,000 in Wilmington if the restructuring is implemented.
ABX Air currently has about 7,000 employees at the DHL Air Park in Wilmington.
Deutsche Post said in March that its fourth-quarter profit slid by more than
60 percent after it wrote down the value of its DHL unit. DHL is cutting its
network capacity in the U.S. by 30 percent.
The American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, has launched a petition drive
aimed at saving DHL/ABX Air jobs in Wilmington.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|