There’s another, depressing airport cargo story in the US: a county in Illinois has spent more than $2.5m on consultants since 2008 in the belief – promoted by the consultants – that it can start a profitable trade route to China. It has also subsidised MidAmerica Airport to the tune of $89m since 2002. The result of all this cash, which continues to be spent? 182 tons have flown through the airport in the past six years (84 tons of this was two helicopters). The plan is to make the airport a connection between Latin America and Ningbo. But it took the airport three years to win approval to be a US Customs port of entry. And it won’t come as a surprise to many in the industry that forwarders (and airlines) have been happy to stick with Chicago. One source said: “It is particularly tragic because it happened in a community that has been gutted economically and could least afford to waste whatever public dollars were made available.”
