UPS to Expand at Memphis Airport
 

UPS to expand in FedEx's home base in Memphis

Amid passenger service declines at the Memphis airport that have left many gates unused, cargo hauling is experiencing a boom.

Scripps Howard News Service

Updated: September 22, 2013 - 2:00 PM

United Parcel Service plans to grow in rival FedExs back yard by nearly doubling sorting capacity at Memphis International Airport.

Airport officials who have been in negotiations with UPS expect the Atlanta-based company to spend more than $25 million and hire well in excess of 100 new employees for an expanded sorting facility.

It serves part of UPS Memphis ground delivery fleet and two flights a day connecting Memphis with Louisville, Ky., home of UPS Worldport.

UPS expansion is a sign of continued strength in cargo traffic at Memphis despite woeful erosion of passenger service, which has dropped from about 300 daily flights in 2000 to about 100.

Cargo, nearly all of it carried by FedEx, is anchoring the Memphis airports finances while officials campaign to attract new passenger service to fill a void left by Delta Air Lines.

Delta dropped to 64 flights on peak days and stopped calling Memphis a hub on Sept. 3.

Earlier this year, Pinnacle Airlines, once headquartered in Memphis, moved to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after emerging from bankruptcy under new ownership by Delta and with a new name, Endeavor.

Our success on the cargo side will help us as we continue our relentless quest for affordable, frequent passenger service, Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority chairman Jack Sammons said.

Airport chief executive officer Larry Cox said a larger UPS presence is good for Memphis companies. Competition is always good, and they're fierce competitors.

Memphis is such an important logistics hub, they have to be as strong as they possibly can here, Cox added.

FedEx had nothing to say about the UPS move.

While it would substantially increase UPS footprint, the project won't challenge FedExs dominance at Memphis, the world's second-busiest air cargo hub behind Hong Kong.

The FedEx Express world hub handles more than 99 percent of airfreight moving through the airport.

UPS is a far distant second.

The airport authority on Thursday approved leasing UPS an additional 1,171,586 square feet and an option to lease another million square feet.

Cargo remains a bright spot in airport finances as Delta ramps down, shops and restaurants close in the terminal building, and gates stand empty.

Airlines currently lease 41 of the airport's 78 gates.

Interesting. But even more interesting was the last sentence. Rapidly going the way of other ex-hubs. PIT for example

pit
cvg
stl

I'm just glad to see a UPS thread again. :)

FDX guys love the anonymity of this venue, unlike the UPS forum where everybody, including our management moles knows who says what. See...we at UPS don't live in rainbow and unicorn land thinking that management EVER has anything good in store for us, and thusly we regard each other in like dislike.

We are watching FDX contract negotiations with great interest, as conventional wisdom would indicate that you may well settle first, which will either raise or lower the bar for us. From what I gather talking with FDX guys, Fred and his gang may well become dramatically more hard-core this time around, and will play the kind of hardball that to a UPS pilot is normal day-to-day life at work. There is discussion in our ranks that it may in everyone's best interest if we settle (or try to) with UPS first, as it sure seems (based on chatter amongst FDX ranks) that Fred is out for blood this time more than ever.

Look...we are BOTH on our own here. Joe six-pack couldn't care less about us, nobody in DC gives a rat's posterior about OUR unions, Asia, India and Europe are teetering and the U.S. economy is hanging by a thread, slower shipping modes are in vogue and there is a LOT of belly space on a lot of jets these days.

We BOTH have only ourselves to rely on both within our respective seniority lists and between our two unions.

We BOTH have MBAs at the gates with torches and pitchforks.

And at the end of the day we BOTH will only have ourselves to blame should we fail.

SB ...

High confidence rumor mill says FDX Management not only reads APC postings but actually prints them out and puts them in your personnel file. Should you get called in for some "alleged" infraction, your first meeting with your Fleet Captain (formerly called "Assistant Chief Pilot) might be with attorneys, court reporters and tape recorders.

Please don't kid yourself into thinking that Management doesn't know who we are ... they do. In fact the "System Chief Pilot" occasionally even comments on this forum.

I get the impression that UPS NURPS get paid less that line pilots? At FedEx Management IS Line Pilots that get paid extra for "taking care" of their peers. In fact they get paid so well that they almost never go back to the line.

The 2 most senior Management Pilots are former Union Negotiating Committee Chairman. I wonder what their new Management jobs cost the rest of us?

Mark...

Whoa...that is both sad and shocking. That a fellow ALPA member and fellow line pilot would act in that manner is truly amazing to me. As I said, we fully expect that kind of behavior over here...in fact we expect worse...in fact we fully expect our management to reach now lows in evermore disgusting ways. Some of us refer to it as Expectation Zero. It's a way of rationalizing and coping with the unique non-airline that is UPS.

As for our NURPs, they each in effect have their own deals. Many of the earlier ones make more than a line captain and have some sweet stock packages, including some that hypothicated their way into millions of extra dollars pre-IPO. Some of the more recent have lesser deals and are even now having things like spousal medical coverage slashed.

It is going to be a tremendous challenge for both of us to get our piece of the action in the coming months...or years that it takes to get new CBAs, and make no mistake, our Geckos are watching (and likely talking with) your Geckos.

Hopefully our leadership will work with each other.

The scary thing about Sideshow Bob is that he's right on 50% of the stuff he posts. Figuring out which 50% is true is the hard part.

Sigh...that's the nature of opining on anything, which I know to someone like you who apparently is right about everything (at least in your own mind), might prove confounding. :rolleyes:

I don't know what I don't know, you know?

I fly airplanes. I think I'm pretty good at it...at least competent. I've yet to master everything and limit my opinions, or at least try to.