Next month's visit from Chinese government and airline officials will make or break St. Louis' efforts to become a trade hub, said Mike Jones, who returned Saturday from a week-long trip to Beijing and Shanghai.
"Next month, I expect a breakthrough for a framework for a deal," said Jones, leader of the Midwest-China Hub Commission.
This most recent trip to China, which also included U.S. Sens. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., laid the groundwork for the Chinese officials' visit to St. Louis slated for mid-October, he said. While here, Chinese officials plan to "kick the tires" at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and meet with officials from Emerson and Sigma-Aldrich, he said.
The exact timeline for when cargo flights will start is still being negotiated between Lambert, Chinese airlines and the freight companies, Jones said.
Next month, local officials "will lay out a business case and the economic advantage of having a freight operation and establishing a hub relationship as opposed to landing the planes on a contract basis," he said. Advantages include relatively few weather delays and shorter taxi times and customs clearances compared with other airports, he said.
Meanwhile, across the Mississippi River in Illinois, a cargo test flight from China landed last month at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah.
(by Kelsey Volkmann , St. Louis Business Journal) |
