Media Coverage

ROADWAY BACK IN AIR FREIGHT
By William Armbruster
JoC ONLINE

Undeterred by a disastrous experience when it entered the airfreight business in the early 1990s, Roadway Express, Inc., one of the nation's largest less-than-truckload carriers, is back at it again. This time, however, Roadway will not be operating any planes itself.

Rather, the new Roadway venture, called Roadway Air, will be relying on the services of other carriers, such as American Airlines and United Airlines. Roadway will be utilizing the technology of Integres, a joint venture formed in May 2001 by Roadway's parent company in conjunction with United and Unisys Corp.

"This unique strategic partnership combines premier multi-modal service providers through a state-of-the-art e-Business platform," said Bill Michael, Roadway's vice president for marketing. He declined to project how much revenue the new service will provide the Akron, Ohio-based carrier, but Integres president Jim Hartigan said he expects it will be a significant sum for both companies.

Roadway plans to focus on heavy freight, at least 150 pounds per shipment, rather than mail or small parcels. Roadway Air expects the arrangement to give its customers access to nearly 3,000 planes, over 12,000 daily flight departures and over 40,000 truck trailers.

Hartigan said Roadway Air will focus initially on domestic shipments, adding Puerto Rico in February and a full international export menu in May. Roadway has more than 650 sales representatives who are already promoting the new service, he added.

"Their sales people are really fired up about this and they're proud to be able to offer this to their customers. It's a nice product line extension for Roadway," said Mary Thomson, a spokeswoman for Integres, based in Rancho Cordova, Calif.

Roadway's last foray into the air cargo business came in the early 1990s when it established a subsidiary called Roadway Global Air, designed to serve as an integrated carrier in the domestic heavyweight market and a forwarder internationally, much like Emery Worldwide and Burlington Air Express, now BAX Global. After a couple years of huge losses, Roadway shut down the operation.

Emery folded its own air operation last year, as its parent company, CNF Inc., merged Emery with CNF's logistics business, Menlo Logistics, to create a new company called Menlo Worldwide. Meanwhile, BAX has also sharply curtailed its domestic air operation. Their actions were prompted by a sharp decline in air traffic due to both the recession and the growing preference among shippers for less-expensive deferred services.