FedEx Could Hire More Employees @ PTI (GSO)
 

I think it will be a great sign when the Greensboro Hub finally opens.

http://www.myfox8.com/wghp-fedex-pti-jobs-090527,0,7594933.story

FedEx Could Hire More Employees This Fall

By Chad Tucker FOX8 News
May 27,2009


GREENSBORO, N.C. - Between 160 and 170 FedEx employees will move into the company's new sorting facility at Piedmont Triad International Airport next week, and company officials say they hope to add another 170 positions as early as this fall.

The new $600 million hub utilizes the most modern sorting equipment in the world, and the company expects that as the economy rights itself, more packages will be sent and additional help will be needed to handle the increased load.

For now, FedEx will use the existing runways at the airport, but the shipping company's own runway and taxiway are under construction. Depending on the weather, officials believe they will open as early as this fall or as late as next spring.

The road to the hub has been a long one.

The executive director of PTIA said Wednesday he remembers the day, in 1998, when FedEx called saying they wanted to call Greensboro home for its mid-Atlantic hub.

"FedEx started sorting under a funeral tent down in the old terminal site many years ago," recalled Ted Johnson.

Along the way, nearby neighborhoods afraid of the noise and environmental impact of hundreds of flights sued FedEx, but eventually lost in state and federal courts.

"We've had lots of meetings with the community," said Johnson. "I think the citizens are much more aware of what this means today than they were 11 years ago."

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Previous Related Article...

FedEx Delays Opening of Greensboro Hub


December 26, 2008

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The FedEx sorting hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport will not open as scheduled in June 2009 and, when it does open, will have at least 50 percent fewer employees than the company pledged to employ.

FedEx said it could be fall 2009 or later before the cargo-sorting hub opens because of lower demand for shipping services and a cost-cutting effort by the company.

FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey said the company's current airport operations, which employs 160 full- and part-time workers, will move into the newly built hub in June. FedEx then plans to hire up to 200 additional employees for the first phase of the hub, for a total workforce of about 360.

That figure is well short of the 700 to 800 employees FedEx has been saying for years it would employ when the hub opened.

FedEx is eligible for $115 million in incentives based on the number of employees at the hub and other factors. FedEx and the state agreed to those incentives in 1998, but McCluskey said a lot has changed in the last decade.

"I think you need to look at the economy more than 10 years ago and the projections based on that snapshot in time," he said.

FedEx said the delay of the airport sorting facility has not affected its ground distribution hub being built in nearby Kernersville. The company broke ground on that facility last month, and it remains on schedule to open in 2011 with at least 700 people working there at the outset.

And from another media source...

FedEx plans to open hub next week

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
By Richard M. Barron
Staff Writer
Accompanying Photos

http://mm.news-record.com/drupal/fil..._at_PTI_0.jpegFile photo (News & Record)
Photo Caption: A FedEx plane departs at Piedmont Triad International Airport.


In less than a week, FedEx will take the wraps off its new package-sorting hub building and begin limited operations there at Piedmont Triad International Airport.


Workers have been tweaking the conveyor and sorting machines for several months inside the $300 million hub.

But FedEx planes at the airport have operated as always — in a nearby cargo terminal.

On Monday, however, the company’s three widebody jets and five small feeder jets will begin their runs at the massive building that can eventually handle scores of planes at a time.

About 160 workers are in the complex process of moving to the new building, said Jim McCluskey, a FedEx spokesman.

It’s the first step of a two-phase process designed to open the hub for wider operations in the fall.

Current cargo operations are a fraction of what FedEx hopes to be doing at its East Coast Hub as it grows in capacity.

“A hub operation is a much larger system compared to (the current) operation and it’s all geared toward volume,” McCluskey said.

FedEx , which expects weak demand through 2009, is delaying the start of overnight sorting operations at PTI for a few months and with a much smaller work force than anticipated.

By fall, depending upon the economy, the hub will begin its sorting operations with 200 additional workers, mostly part-time with benefits.

The company has not begun hiring those workers and will not announce its hiring process until it feels confident the economy can support the expansion.

The total of 350 workers is far lower than the 600 to 800 workers the company had predicted earlier that it would need when the hub opens.

But McCluskey said the changes say nothing about the company’s commitment to the Triad operation and everything about the bad economy.

I hope you're not expecting this to indicate more pilots will be hired or a pilot domicile will be established at GSO. It's just going to be another sort facility without pilots based there, like OAK, IND, AFW and EWR.

Every party has a pooper...

From the May 27th article -
So this looks like a good sign to you? I hope they offer some of those positions to pilots.

No expectation for a pilot domicile --- the article (and our mgt) makes no mention of additional pilot jobs at GSO.

Initially, it was thought the GSO hub may some day grow as large IND --- as they download unnecessary east coast flights that currently transit EWR --- but, that day is a long way off.

Personally, I welcome any trips that start/transit/end in GSO --- without a domicile.;) (...the guys who live in IND tell me that's mo betta!)

From my perspective, the fact that FEDEX is finally building, opening and operating the hub is a good step in that direction.

Yes --- 350 < 800, but > zero!

The fact it appears they are willing to operate the hub (albeit, at a much lower level) is a sign they are not just writing off the previous investment as "sunk cost" and walking away.

When a patient is listless, any sign of a weak pulse getting stronger is still a good sign.:)

It won't be good for folks working at IND or EWR.