Ghost Town: An American Nightmare

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ghost-town-an-american-nightmare-1646434.html

Wilmington, a small town in America’s Midwestern rust belt, was home to the world’s largest private airport. Then recession struck.
Olivia Fincato reports.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

We will probably lose our home, and maybe our truck," says Jessica Siders, a former employee at DHL's US delivery hub in Wilmington, Ohio – the world's largest private airport. She lost her job as a sorter at DHL Solutions back in December. Her husband Kenneth was also laid off from ABX, an air cargo company controlled by DHL. "We had health insurance through his severance package, but only until 1 March. He's diabetic and his heart condition is bad."


Samantha Casolari

In Wilmington, every small business has been affected by the actions of DHL. Stores are closing, and people are leaving.

Sider and her husband are among the estimated 7,500 residents of Wilmington – out of a 12,000 population – who have lost their jobs with DHL since cuts were announced late last year (9,000 were laid off nationwide). Employed as sorters, fork-lift drivers, mechanics and supervisors, the people of this small town north-east of Cincinnati were hit the hardest when the shipping company announced swingeing cost-saving measures in November last year in the midst of the worst financial crisis in decades. In Wilmington, every small business has been affected by the actions of DHL. Stores are closing, and people are leaving.

Dominated by a single employer, Wilmington is one of America's "company towns". When DHL announced last November that it would end its US domestic freight operations and turn over its American air-cargo service to competitor United Parcel Service (UPS), its Wilmington hub bore the brunt.

DHL had been in Wilmington for only five years, and the closure of its base there demonstrates not just the impact of the global recession – although demand for express shipments in the US has fallen sharply – but the end of an ambitious dream to take on its rivals FedEx and UPS.

In 2003, Deutsche Post, the German logistics group that owns DHL, one of the world's leading delivery companies, acquired Airborne Express, a domestic delivery concern. In America, Airborne Express was served by ABX air cargo airlines, based in Wilmington, Ohio. The purchase represented DHL's effort to consolidate US operations – and finally offer serious competition to the big two. Central to DHL's audacious plan was the establishment of a new distribution base at the sprawling, 2, 200 acre Wilmington airport.

The DHL/Airborne Express deal looked like the perfect match: a German shipping corporation that was efficient, on time and detail-oriented, to be served by a cargo airline and sorting company with more than 25 years of experience of domestic express delivery.

FULL story at link.

Photos In pictures: Wilmington, portrait of a recession hit town: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ghost-town-an-american-nightmare-1646434.html?action=Popup