UPS Prepares For Closure Of Dayton Freight Hub

UPS will close its air freight hub at Dayton International Airport in mid-2006. The closure will eliminate about 1,400 local jobs. The hub operation is expected to be moved to another UPS hub in one of six cities.

Dayton's heavy freight operation will be co-located with one of UPS's six other package hubs in Rockford, Ill.; Hartford, Conn.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Columbia, S.C.; Dallas, Tx.; or Ontario, Calif.

Emery To Menlo to UPS To Gone:

1981 -- Emery Airfreight opens North American Sortation Center at Dayton International Airport. Processed 900,000 pounds of freight. There were 350 employees.

1989 -- C.F. Inc. buys Emery Airfreight, renaming it Emery Worldwide. The sorting hub processes 300 million pounds of freight.

1990 -- Emery Worldwide Airlines headquarters moved from California to Dayton, bringing 600 more jobs.

1996 -- 100,000-square-foot logistics complex opened, bringing employment up to 2,126. Processed 1.1 million pounds of freight.

1998 -- Processed 1.2 million pounds of freight with 4,207 employees. Total payroll was $160 million. At its height the operations included six miles of conveyor belts; 80 flights moved 3.5 million pounds a day.

Feb. 16, 2000 -- Emery Flight 17 crashes in Sacramento, Calil., killing all three crew members.

2001 -- Emery grounds its airline in face of an FAA investigation into its cargo operations after a cargo plane crashed in California.

October 2004 -- CNF sells its air business, now called Menlo Forwarding to UPS.

Feb. 24, 2006 -- UPS announces it is shutting down its Dayton sorting hub.

Information courtesy of Dayton Daily News