a:25:{s:9:"weblog_id";s:1:"4";s:8:"entry_id";s:0:"";s:6:"sticky";s:0:"";s:14:"allow_comments";s:1:"n";s:16:"allow_trackbacks";s:1:"n";s:10:"entry_date";s:19:"2011-03-14 08:33 PM";s:15:"expiration_date";s:0:"";s:23:"comment_expiration_date";s:0:"";s:8:"category";a:1:{i:0;s:1:"4";}s:9:"author_id";s:1:"4";s:6:"status";s:4:"open";s:14:"trackback_urls";s:0:"";s:18:"versioning_enabled";s:1:"y";s:5:"title";s:30:"St. Louis Fields China Mission";s:9:"url_title";s:29:"st_louis_fields_china_mission";s:4:"save";s:10:"Quick Save";s:11:"field_id_26";s:30:"St. Louis Fields China Mission";s:11:"field_ft_26";s:4:"none";s:11:"field_id_31";s:0:"";s:11:"field_id_44";s:544:"On February 27, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, director of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, flew to China to begin negotiations with China Cargo Airlines to land cargo flights from China at Lambert.

She told the audience at a St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers\' presentation on transportation infrastructure that she hopes China Cargo Airlines will begin landing three flights a week at Lambert this summer and grow its schedule to 30 flights a week by 2015.

“Cargo drives development, passenger travel does not,â€ she said. “";s:11:"field_ft_44";s:4:"none";s:11:"field_id_28";s:0:"";s:11:"field_ft_28";s:4:"none";s:11:"field_id_29";s:3012:"<p>On February 27, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, director of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, flew to China to begin negotiations with China Cargo Airlines to land cargo flights from China at Lambert.<br /><br />She told the audience at a St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers\' presentation on transportation infrastructure that she hopes China Cargo Airlines will begin landing three flights a week at Lambert this summer and grow its schedule to 30 flights a week by 2015.<br /><br />&ldquo;Cargo drives development, passenger travel does not,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This will lead to significant economic development for the airport, the county, and the St. Louis region,&rdquo; she said.<br /><br />John Kasarda, co-author of Aerotropolis: The Way We\'ll Live Next and director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina, said in a telephone interview that he applauds St. Louis for going after air cargo from China.<br /><br />Kasarda coined the term aerotropolis in 2000 to describe what he calls a new urban form, in which airports are the new city centers with distribution centers, office buildings, light manufacturing,&nbsp; convention centers and hotels all growing around them and linked to airports by roads and rail lines.<br /><br />He theorized that airports will drive urban growth and economic development in the twenty-first century in the same way that highways drove development in the twentieth century and railroads drove development in the nineteenth century.<br /><br />Recognizing that American carriers have well established freight hubs that would be hard to move, St. Louis civic leaders chose to chase a Chinese carrier seeking to establish a presence in the North American market. In January, the Chinese government designated China Cargo Airlines to negotiate with St. Louis.<br /><br />China Cargo Airlines is a subsidiary of China\'s largest air cargo carrier, China Eastern Airlines. Last year, China Eastern Airlines sold minority stakes in China Cargo Airlines to Singapore International Airlines and Taiwan-based EVA airlines to raise cash for its expansion.<br /><br />Kasarda said getting an agreement with China Cargo Airlines is just the start of a very steep climb to build an air cargo hub.<br /><br />&ldquo;St. Louis has lost a lot of its logistics infrastructure, hard and soft, with the decline of manufacturing there, the end of TWA, and the loss of American Airlines,&rdquo; he said, explaining that landing freight is only part of the process, getting it out of the airport and to its destination quickly is the other part.<br /><br />&ldquo;St. Louis will have to build relationships with freight forwarders and third-party logistics providers, establish procedures for fast customs clearance, for quick licensing and permitting, for electronic transactions, and so on,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And it takes landing more than one flight a day to develop that,&rdquo; he said.<br /></p>
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