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DHL cuts will force layoff of 303 pilots by July, ASTAR says

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By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 4:42 PM Thursday, January 7, 2010

ASTAR Air Cargo said it will lay off 303 pilots between March 6 and July 1 as a result of the reduced cargo flying demand from DHL, which slashed its U.S. express delivery operations in 2009 to international-U.S. shipments only in order to cut its $1 billion annual losses in the American market.

The layoffs will affect pilots based at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport, according to a letter from ASTAR Air Cargo to the Air Line Pilots Association, the union representing ASTAR pilots. Rob Miller, ASTAR’s vice president for employee relations, wrote that the letter was intended to give the pilots’ union 60 days advance notice of the layoffs under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) law.

The layoffs ultimately will reduce ASTAR’s current pilot work force from 456 to 153 pilots in early July, Miller wrote to union leaders in a letter dated Tuesday, Jan. 5.

ASTAR previously had pilots in DHL service based in Wilmington, Ohio, when DHL operated its U.S. freight delivery hub there. But DHL relocated the reduced remains of that hub operation to Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport in July 2009, after receiving economic incentives from Kentucky, where that airport is based.

Patrick Walsh, chairman of the ALPA local representing ASTAR pilots, said Thursday that the union has known for months that the layoffs were coming.

“It’s certainly been difficult,” said Walsh, who is on the list to be laid off on or about June 1. He is based in Cincinnati and has been an ASTAR pilot for 15 years.

DHL merged with the former Airborne Express in 2003 and had moved its cargo sorting to Wilmington in the fall of 2005 from the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky airport.

“We’re very sorry to see it happen,” Wilmington Mayor David Raizk said of the upcoming pilot layoffs. “Many of them came up here, with the move to Wilmington, with all good intentions. Many of them became part of the community.”

ABX Air, the other cargo airline which flew DHL cargo from Wilmington, has laid off more than 400 of its pilots because of the DHL cutbacks. ABX Air still operates a limited number of DHL cargo flights.

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