UPS says Worldport expansion complete
Posted June 23, 2010
UPS said Tuesday it has completed the $1 billion expansion of its Worldport air hub at Louisville International Airport, which began in 2006.
The company also said it has begun operating a new $180 million intra-Asia air hub in Shenzhen, China.
The company made the announcements while reporting first-quarter profits rose 33 percent from a year earlier.
Net income was $533 million, or 53 cents per share, compared with $401 million, or 40 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2009. Revenue increased 7 percent to $11.7 billion.
Despite that rebound, UPS shares fell $2.30 Tuesday along with the broader market to close at 66.22.
Earlier this month UPS announced its earnings per share, but didn’t provide complete financial numbers. The company said strong growth in overseas package volume fueled the quarter’s revenue gain.
The quarter’s results exceeded the company’s expectations, and UPS expects continued revenue growth the rest of this year, chief financial officer Kurt Kuehn said in a statement Tuesday.
The 1.2 million-square-foot expansion of Worldport increased the highly automated facility’s package sorting capacity by 37 percent to 416,000 packages an hour.
Kuehn said in a conference call that the expansion of its main global air hub enabled UPS to cut costs and operate more efficiently.
A larger Worldport allows UPS to use fewer but larger planes, save on fuel and cut back operations at smaller hubs, he said.
UPS opened the first segment of the expansion last July. That portion of the project increased package handling capability to 350,000 an hour compared with 304,000 before.
At that time, UPS expected the second segment to be completed by June 2010. But the company announced the project’s completion two months ahead of schedule.
Mike Mangeot, spokesman for Louisville-based UPS Airlines, said a ramp-up of the new section began about three weeks ago and is now fully operational.
Worldport now has 70 aircraft parking bays, allowing more planes to unload and load packages each night.
The facility measures 5.2 million square feet and contains 115 miles of conveyors.
Worldport has about 8,900 employees, Mangeot said. Overall, UPS has about 20,000 employees in Louisville.
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