DHL pulls plug on March Air Reserve Base-Hong Kong flight

A DHL flight linking Riverside and Hong Kong cargo will take off and land at Los Angeles International Airport instead starting Oct. 26.

The shift will leave DHL with an average of four daily flights at March Air Reserve Base. DHL landed at the airport in 2005 and had eight daily flights at its height.

A pending agreement with shipping competitor UPS could eventually leave DHL without any flights at its 262,000-square- foot Riverside hub.

The route was considered an international flight, DHL’s only foreign-bound flight from March, because it concluded in Hong Kong after connecting in Alaska.

That leaves DHL with a handful of late-night domestic flights that face an uncertain future at the company’s Inland hub.

Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster said the developer’s master plan and DHL’s cutbacks could give commission members a second chance to take a broader look at what makes good business sense and be more aggressive in seeking landing fees and revenues from the companies that land at March.

A DHL flight linking Riverside and Hong Kong cargo will take off and land at Los Angeles International Airport instead starting Oct. 26.

The shift will leave DHL with an average of four daily flights at March Air Reserve Base. DHL landed at the airport in 2005 and had eight daily flights at its height.

A pending agreement with shipping competitor UPS could eventually leave DHL without any flights at its 262,000-square- foot Riverside hub.

The fate of DHL’s March Air Reserve Base ground operations, and 300 jobs, is unclear.
The German shipping company told the March Joint Powers Authority this week that DHL’s flight between Riverside and Anchorage, a route flown by contractor ABX Air and soon to be flown by contractor Polar Air, will fly into and out of Los Angeles International Airport instead, the group’s executive director, Lori Stone, said.

The route was considered an international flight, DHL’s only foreign-bound flight from March, because it concluded in Hong Kong after connecting in Alaska.

“It was a business decision that we made and in the best long-term interests of the company,” said DHL spokesman Jonathan Baker.

That leaves DHL with a handful of late-night domestic flights that face an uncertain future at the company’s Inland hub.

A pending $10 billion, 10-year agreement with competitor UPS would have the Atlanta-based shipper ferry DHL’s packages by air in the United States and would do away with domestic flights from the former air force base, he said.

What would happen to DHL’s ground operations where packages are sorted and loaded onto trucks from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. nightly by more 300 people remains unclear.

Stone said the agreement between the two shippers is expected to be final before the end of September.

“That’s the goal,” she said. “By the end of the month we should know the impact on domestic flights with DHL’s decisions and agreements with UPS.”

DHL’s plan to trim flights out of March is a setback, but “it’s not anywhere near a fatal setback,” said Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley.

“We’ll come back and fill those job slots, maybe in a different form.”

He cited the airport developer’s desire to diversify with civil aviation, industrial uses and cargo options, not dependent on DHL being a tenant.

“There will probably always be a cargo component,” he said. “Those facilities are there. You can’t tear them out very easy.”

March GlobalPort officials, the developers of the former air force base, presented their vision for the rest of their airfield property surrounding DHL’s hub, about 300 acres at the south end of the runway, during a study session of the March Joint Powers Commission Wednesday morning.

“We believe that if we take the right approach, we can design and develop the airport of the future,” said Aaron Knox, spokesman for March GlobalPort.

Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster said the developer’s master plan and DHL’s cutbacks could give commission members a second chance to take a broader look at what makes good business sense and be more aggressive in seeking landing fees and revenues from the companies that land at March.

“It’s going to take longer, but I think there’s a more realistic appraisal of what March could be,” he said of the master plan. “The whole aviation, energy picture is changing. Cargo is changing. It’s going to be a very difficult time to set a strategic direction for March.”