BAX to reopen after shutting down at Toledo Express Airport in DHL tie-up

Time:2011-09-30 Browse:54 Author:RISINGSUN

BAX Global will pay Ohio`s Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority US$8.7 million to buy out the last two years of its lease at the Toledo Express Airport cargo hub after shutting down operations there on September 1, reports the Toledo Blade.

The deal will allow the port authority to begin marketing the vacated cargo-hub facility right away to prospective tenants, instead of two years from now, while BAX`s lump sum will exceed what it would have paid in rent, bond service, and taxes between now and 2013, said board chairman Opie Rollison.


BAX will be allowed to use "a reasonable portion" of office space at the hub through March at no extra charge. The port authority will become responsible for the hub facility`s upkeep, utilities and taxes.


The air freight firm also will be paid back $260,000 it had advanced to the port authority toward the cost of building a customs facility and other hub improvements that BAX and the port authority had agreed to before BAX decided to shut down. None of the planned improvements were built, said the Blade.


The port authority, which owns the hub complex and financed its construction, will accept the facility back from BAX "as-is" except for any environmental cleanup costs.


"This will make the port authority whole. We pretty much have what we felt we wanted and needed out of this negotiation," said port`s finance chairman John Szuch.


After 20 years of operation at Toledo Express, BAX - the former Burlington Air Express - said it closed its cargo hub because of shifts away from air freight to ground transport.


The board also approved a three-year, month-to-month lease with DHL Worldwide Inc, a division of Deutsche Post providing international express mail services, to occupy part of the Air Cargo Building at Toledo Express for truck-plane cargo storage and transfer.


DHL freight will be international transfers from overseas flights at Cincinnati to an air route serving Toledo and Minneapolis-St Paul, with goods handled in Toledo being trucked to or from Detroit or Grand Rapids, Michigan. DHL had contracted with BAX to transfer such freight on its behalf before the hub shutdown.


BAX, first known as Burlington Northern Air Freight, started as a unit of Burlington Northern Railroad. In 1982, it was acquired by the Pittston Company, which later became Brink`s. In 1997, it changed its name to BAX Global. In 2006, DB Logistics, the logistics division of Deutsche Bahn, acquired BAX Global from Brink`s for $1.1 billion.


In July 2011 Schenker Inc (DB Schenker Logistics) announced it would give up its North American air freight business, and no longer use its 20 aircraft.