While air passengers have been slow to warm to Ontario International Airport, air cargo operations at the airport are taking off.
Air cargo handled at Ontario was up 43% to 48,800 tons in May, compared with May 1999.
Most of the increase can be attributed to a new 400,000-square-foot United Parcel Service Inc. logistics center at Ontario. The facility is a warehouse for goods from companies like video game maker Sega Enterprises Ltd. that fill orders via UPS.
“The center’s increased our market share from 70% to 80% at the Ontario Airport,” said Oscar Sepulveda, a spokesman for UPS in Ontario.
By contrast, cargo shipped through John Wayne Airport decreased 5.8% year-to-year in May, to 1,453 tons. A spokeswoman at John Wayne Airport said she did not know the reason for the decline. John Wayne counts only two cargo flights a day by UPS and FedEx Corp. The bulk of the county’s cargo goes out of Ontario or Los Angeles International Airport.
Airline passengers have been slow to embrace Ontario airport, which completed a new passenger terminal last year. Its growth has been steady if slow, up 2.1% to 2.7 million passengers for the first five months this year.
Sepulveda noted that companies like eToys Inc., Toys R Us Inc. and Sears, Roebuck and Co. have opened warehouse facilities in Ontario.
“Ontario is becoming an alternative to LAX,” Sepulveda said. “Different corporations are moving into Ontario to improve their timing of deliveries to customers.”
Whether Ontario is starting to take business away from the Los Angeles International is not yet clear. The latest monthly figure for LAX is from April, before UPS opened its Ontario facility. That month, LAX cargo shipments were up 9.6% year-to-year, to 182,400 tons.
“The economy is doing well. It’s pretty dramatic,” said Tom Winfrey, a spokesman for LAX.
For the first five months this year, cargo shipped at Ontario increased 25.4% to 221,000 tons. John Wayne’s cargo total remained flat at 7,526 tons during the same period. LAX’s total rose 10.3% to 719,000 tons for the first four months of the year.
LAX is expected to remain the hub of cargo operations in southern California. Federal Express, which is the biggest shipper at LAX, is spending $60 million to build a 182,400-square-foot cargo building with a 10-acre aircraft ramp area. EVA Air, United Airlines and Asiana Airlines are upgrading their cargo operations. In the past four years, Qantas, Nippon Cargo Airlines and Mercury Air Cargo have opened new cargo facilities.
While Ontario does have “international” in its name, it thus far has few international flights either for cargo or passengers. It could become a true international airport if UPS secures landing rights in China, a decision the U.S. Department of Transportation is expected to make within a couple of months.
Sepulveda said that if UPS gets the OK, it will operate six daily flights to China from Ontario. n
