Rickenbacker Revival: How an all-cargo airport found a new spark

A new gateway is born

As the number of airlines and flights serving the Columbus region grows, forwarders have renewed and expanded their commitment to LCK. “The Columbus region now offers a complete package of logistics and distribution capabilities with export capability,” said Kenny McDonald, CEO of Columbus 2020, the region’s economic development organization.

Trinity Logistics Worldwide specializes in airfreight for the fashion and retail industries. It has been using Rickenbacker as a hub for nearly all of its inbound volumes for some time now, but company president David Pereira said Trinity has now made the decision to use Rickenbacker as its gateway for shipments out of the United States as well.

Pereira said Trinity’s attraction to Rickenbacker and Columbus was initially the concentration of fashion retailers that do business in the region and use it as their main point of distribution. “The magic about the whole place is it optimizes our revenue, it brings in speed, and expands our pure import forwarding operation to include more exports, giving our business better balance,” said Pereira. As it shifts outbound freight from JFK to LCK, Trinity expects that, in addition to fashion imports, it will diversify into high-tech and automotive.

When it became apparent that exports to Asia would be an option, Rickenbacker became an even bigger part of Trinity’s long-term strategy. The company’s new office opened in the airport’s new shared-space cargo terminal on June 1.

“The only issue I had with Rickenbacker in the beginning was the cost of getting the freight there,” said MTA Lines’ Gareau. In many cases, LTL rates were cheaper for the ten-hour drive between New York and Cleveland than they were for the two-hour drive to Columbus. Shippers, he added, rarely pay attention to routing decisions.

As carrier activity in airport picked up, MTA was able to start consolidating in Cleveland and run its own trucks down to Rickenbacker. “The proximity and airline schedules work for us,” Gareau said. “We can send a truck at 3 p.m., and make the 6 p.m. cutoff.”