UPS to close Dayton hub; 1,400 will be laid off

<p>UPS will close its only sorting hub for heavy airline freight in 2006, eliminating 1,400 jobs, the world's largest shipping carrier announced Thursday.</p><p>A new hub for cargo weighing more than 150 pounds will be built at another UPS facility in an effort to improve efficiency, said Norman Black, spokesman for the Atlanta-based UPS.</p><p>UPS has operated the hub at Dayton International Airport since Dec. 20, when the company bought it from Menlo Worldwide Forwarding for $150 million plus assuming $110 million in debt.</p><p>Workers at the site unload freight from arriving planes, sort it according to destination, and then reload it on departing planes.</p><p>A small number of workers may be offered jobs at other UPS locations, with the remaining employees given severance pay and job counseling, Black said.</p><p>"This was a very difficult decision," he said.</p><p>The new sorting hub will be built at one of the company's other hubs in Louisville, Ky.; Philadelphia; Dallas; Ontario, Calif.; Rockford, Ill.; Columbia, S.C.; and Hartford, Conn., Black said.</p>

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