The year of 2020 and the early part of 2021 may have been terrible for Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) when it comes to passenger traffic, but, according to a Monday, March 29 press release, PTIA is doing terrific in job creation.
The release noted that both HAECO Americas and FedEx – two of the airport’s biggest companies – are adding, or have already added, hundreds of new employees. That’s great news for an airport that, like many across the world, has been beaten down by the pandemic.
PTIA officials call the airport “a regional employment center with approximately 8,600 jobs” and state that the number has been growing this year and is continuing to grow.
“Two of our major tenants – FedEx and HAECO – are adding employees,” said Kevin Baker, the airport’s executive director. “These two companies already employ a significant number of people – and that number is growing.”
HAECO, one of the world’s best-known aircraft maintenance and repair companies, is planning to hire an additional 150 to 200 people at PTIA due to an increasing need for aircraft mechanics.
FedEx Express is also in the process of adding jobs. According to Tom Maxwell, the managing director of the FedEx Express Mid-Atlantic Hub at PTIA, the company’s work force at the airport will grow to exceed 1,000.
He stated in the Monday press release, “The FedEx Express Mid-Atlantic Hub at PTI has recently added approximately 350 new employees to support an expanded schedule of daytime flights at the hub. The new jobs at FedEx will bring total employment to more than 1,000 workers, and will include part-time, full- time and management positions.”
Paul Mengert, the chairman of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority – the seven-member board that runs PTIA – said the job growth at FedEx appears to be driven by increasing demand for faster delivery service.
HAECO has grown in part because the company services FedEx aircraft as well as other cargo and passenger carriers.
Bill Collins, the president of Airframe Services at HAECO, stated that aircraft maintenance demand increased “sharply” for HAECO Americas several months ago.
HAECO even has a new website – HAECOisHiring.com – for those interested in working for the company.
According to Baker, despite the COVID-19 scourge, cargo traffic at PTIA increased nearly 30 percent in February compared to the pre-pandemic cargo numbers of February 2020.
PTIA actually leads the state in cargo service, with total annual processed freight of 303,500 tons. Cargo carriers that operate at PTI include FedEx, UPS and Kalitta Air –with FedEx providing the lion’s share of that service.
PTIA is hoping to bring even more jobs to the area in the future. In recent years, Baker and the leadership team at the airport have been working on converting a former golf course and other land around the airport into a huge aviation megasite. The pandemic has thrown roadblocks in the way of getting aviation businesses to locate there, but, now that the pandemic abating, there could be even more jobs coming to PTIA in the near future.
