DHL Announces to Stay in Ohio

The city of Wilmington, OH got news yesterday it had waited eagerly for months to hear: DHL has chosen to keep Wilmington as its principal hub for a $1.2 billion plan to improve overnight letter and package deliveries to North America.

Ohio made a hefty, $422.4 million offer to help persuade DHL to keep its main hub in Wilmington, rather than move it to the company's freight hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in northern Kentucky.

The Plantation, Fla.-based shipper said it expects to spend $350 million to upgrade the existing Wilmington airport as the base for sorting operations and nightly delivery flights for what the company expects will be improved service to U.S., Mexican and Canadian destinations.

The improvements include increasing Wilmington's freight sorting capacity, adding ramp space for more planes and opening seven additional regional sorting centers around the country in locations yet to be disclosed.

DHL, which is owned by Germany's Deutsche Post World Net, hopes to become more competitive with the larger U.S. shippers FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service.

DHL said it will consolidate operations by moving an undetermined number of jobs by the fall of 2005 from DHL's freight handling hub at the Cincinnati airport to Wilmington.

More here.