Greens see red as UPS plans expansion
UPS is to pour more than US$100m ( t117m) into expanding its Cologne hub, despite protests from environmentalists.
The US integrator will start construction at Konrad Adenauer airport in the third quarter of next year, with completion expected in 2005.
AUPS spokesman said: “The building is being expanded to position us for the future. We are more than doubling the sort capacity from 60,000 to 135,000 packages an hour.”
A spokesman for the local Green Party said: “UPS wants to go ahead with this development but that doesn’t mean it will be able to. We are going to fight this development.”
Locally, the Greens share power with the Social Democratic Party which supports the UPS bid. The spokesman added: “It’s not the time for UPS to make a decision on this. Negotiations are continuing between the politicians on this issue.”
UPS operates 34 flights a night from the airport, and says that its new, larger fleet will preclude an increase in air movements until 2006.
Hartmut Wlodarczyk, senior VP for sales and marketing at Cologne airport, said:
“The expansion is essential to the development of cargo at the airport, and for a possible increase in flights.
“We have an advantage in Europe with night flights and must be successful in countering the Greens, otherwise the development of express systems at the airport will not be possible.”
Cologne has been guaranteed night flights until 2015, but environmentalists want to see this rescinded.
Cargo volume increased at the airport by 8% last year to 450,000 tonnes. UPS saw export volumes from Europe grow by more than 25% in the first quarter this year, while worldwide exports increased 17%.
Halfway into the second quarter, UPS said growth out of Europe was still in the upper teens.
The facility development is expected to create 700 new UPS jobs by 2006, increasing the number of employees working for the company to 2300.
UPS rescheduled its nightly B747F service out of Cologne from 3am to 6am last month and modified its charter fleet to meet a night-time noise restriction deadline of October 2002.
Posted: 25/06/2001
IFW
