Dallas Chamber economist urges city build two air cargo hubs

Shipping Gazette | 2009-05-20

Dallas

GREATER Dallas Chamber economist Lyssa Jenkens is calling on civic authorities to "sell harder" to attract greater foreign investment to town and focus on building two, perhaps three new giant air cargo facilities.

"The growing edge of the economy is global. You don't want to make that 90 per cent of your economic strategy, but to be in that top tier of growth, we've got to do a much better job of capturing that edge in the global economy," Ms Jenkens told The Dallas Morning News.

The call comes after the Dallas Regional Chamber sponsored a global competitiveness study that puts Dallas-Fort Worth in the top 10 business cities of the world, ahead of Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The region already has two huge air cargo facilities at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Fort Worth Alliance Airport operated by the Hillwood companies.

The Dallas-Fort airport is a regional hub for UPS, while Fort Worth airport is a regional FedEx hub. Both move hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo to other sites across the country.

"I've been studying this for a long time, and you have to stand back and say, at the metro level, do we need two or three D/FWs?" Ms Jenkens asked. "That is important, especially since we don't have a water port."

Tom Harris, a senior vice president with Hillwood Properties, said, "Between the two airports, I think we've got a platform that can really put us, this region, at the forefront of the international air cargo community."

The report noted that Fort Worth is lengthening its two runways so that fully loaded Boeing 747 cargo aircraft can make direct flights to Europe and Asia year-round. Dallas/Fort Worth has a giant air cargo area on the northwest side of the airport, with room to grow.

Ms Jenkens said if Dallas wants to eclipse Chicago, it should give more thought to its capacity as a port, chiefly with regard to handling greater volumes of air freight.