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"MidAmerica Airport sees first international cargo flight"
Title:
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
MidAmerica
Airport sees first international cargo flight
By Tim
Logan
The St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch
Cargo workers at the new international
cargo facility at MidAmerica Airport unload one of the first international
shipments. |
On Sunday night, it finally landed:
the first ever international cargo shipment into MidAmerica Airport.
The
arriving DC-10 was full of giant pallets, each stacked with 2,200 pounds of seed
corn from Chile.
The flight was two years in the making. That is the time
since the long-struggling St. Clair County airport finished its $7 million cargo
terminal and decided to focus on the growing air freight business, rather than
its foundering passenger service.
Finally, at about 8:50 p.m. Sunday, the
first foreign flight arrived.
The DC-10 was inspected by customs officials,
off-loaded by the ground crew and sent back to Panama for another load of seed
corn, grown in Chile and brought north in a hurry for the spring planting
season.
The second flight landed Monday, just before 1 p.m. Seven more
trips are scheduled before the week is out. The seed corn is destined for
Monsanto Co. facilities around the Midwest, where it will be meted out to
farmers.
It is a one-time deal, and no additional international flights
are scheduled, yet. But MidAmerica Airport Director Tim Cantwell says he hopes
the business will put MidAmerica on the radar screens of other cargo clients,
with the goal of winning regularly scheduled service.
Until this week,
the county-owned airport's gleaming cargo facility has sat mostly empty, host to
just a handful of domestic freight runs. But it could be a vital piece of the
region's economy, said St. Clair County Chairman Mark Kern.
Still,
takeoff may prove tough, said Ned Laird, managing director of Air Cargo
Management Group, a Seattle-based aviation consulting firm.
Lots of
smaller airports are trying to break into the cargo business, and MidAmerica
isn't close enough to any major markets other than St. Louis.
But
MidAmerica has good transportation links and low costs, Laird said. It could
make air cargo work yet.
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