Who’s Afraid of the Aerotropolis?

Last week KMOX’s Charlie Brennan chimed in again on the Aerotropolis tax credits. This time he was assisted by Michael Webber, the owner of a cargo consultancy, in his anti-aerotropolis bill crusade. Brennan has been very vocal about how the tax credits couldn’t work, comparing them to other “silver bullet projects”. On KETC’s Donnybrook program recently, he was upset about giving the Chinese tax breaks “to make it even easier for them to take our jobs and ship their goods to the US.”

With such statements Brennan continues to display his lack of understanding of China in general and the cargo hub concept at Lambert Airport. Brennan’s guest on the show, consultant Webber, asserted that it is nearly impossible to start up a new cargo hub today because current networks have long been established and freight forwarders, logistics companies and distributors will not change their routes and networks to accommodate a new hub. He stated: “cities don’t build hubs, airlines and freight forwarders do.”