The Bad News Report

[cltbwimob]

I wonder if Amazon will follow the same model of the large integrators (FedEx and UPS) and have a primary hub with a slew of smaller regional hubs.  If so maybe Charlotte could serve as a regional hub for the southeast at some point.

[CLT2014]

9 hours ago, saamh said:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/31/amazon-picks-kentucky-airport-as-site-for-air-cargo-hub.html

Not bad news for Charlotte, just didn't know where to put this, so if this needs to be moved somewhere else please do so...

Was Charlotte or any city in NC ever in the running for this?

Charlotte is the only airport with the correct runway situation for a cargo hub in NC, but we are already extremely crowded with the 800+ daily passenger flights out of the airport. Adding 200 more cargo flights would over-burden the airport so we would not be able to accommodate a large cargo hub without additional runways. We are fine for a spoke/ mini hub for cargo though.

Raleigh and Greensboro only have one 10,000 foot runway each so they would not be an option for a cargo hub.

Compare that to Cincinnati that has 3 runways longer than 10,000 feet + an 8,000 foot runway, the Delta hub has closed so there are less passenger aircraft movements to compete with, and a good location in the middle of the country. 

Edited February 1, 2017 by CLT2014

[HopHead]

Yea, I don't see a cargo hub here working with the amount of traffic CLT has either. At least not without a new runway. I'd imagine American would throw a fit. 

[Miesian Corners]

13 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

Charlotte is the only airport with the correct runway situation for a cargo hub in NC, but we are already extremely crowded with the 800+ daily passenger flights out of the airport. Adding 200 more cargo flights would over-burden the airport so we would not be able to accommodate a large cargo hub without additional runways. We are fine for a spoke/ mini hub for cargo though.

Raleigh and Greensboro only have one 10,000 foot runway each so they would not be an option for a cargo hub.

Compare that to Cincinnati that has 3 runways longer than 10,000 feet + an 8,000 foot runway, the Delta hub has closed so there are less passenger aircraft movements to compete with, and a good location in the middle of the country. 

Not really. Cargo operations are mainly overnight when passenger service is nearly zero. 

[nakers2]

34 minutes ago, Miesian Corners said:

Not really. Cargo operations are mainly overnight when passenger service is nearly zero. 

Very true, Memphis (FedEx) is actually the busiest airport in the world at night. However at CLT you'd have a huge PR backlash due to noise abatement, cargo planes are usually large and loud and 5/23 isn't gonna be there in the future, meaning these planes will be flying right over the neighborhoods that get jet noise all day long. And we wouldn't really be able to use the "you knew the airport was there" argument because while yes, they should expect noise during the day, nighttime noise would be new.

[KJHburg]

The 3 busiest cargo airports in the US are Memphis Anchorage and Louisville none of which are among the largest in passengers. This Amazon hub was going to midwest not to the southeast. I would rather have the passenger service like we have than a huge air cargo hub. 

[CLT2014]

10 hours ago, Miesian Corners said:

Not really. Cargo operations are mainly overnight when passenger service is nearly zero. 

True, while there are significant overnight operations (FedEx runs over 100 flights departing each night out of Memphis), there are also mid day banks of flights as well. Between 2 and 4PM, FedEx operates 101 departures. Between 8AM and 10AM they have 100 arrivals from other cities, etc... So while a cargo hub has its largest bank overnight, to truly build a big cargo hub, there will also be some mid-day banks as well that would compete with American's hourly arrival and departure banks. At the end of the day though, our location is too far Southeast, but I think we would be a great regional distribution hub for maybe 50 cargo flights per day. 

Edited February 2, 2017 by CLT2014

[Vitamin_N]

I have no idea if this is bad news for Charlotte or not, but I've read on this board that Charlotte has some nuclear power industry employment, so I noticed this article about Toshiba possibly going bankrupt because of a large bet placed on the nuclear industry:

Toshiba was supposed to have announced at least $7 billion in losses during an earnings call yesterday. Instead, it cancelled the report, saying “it was not able to immediately secure the approval of its auditor.”

Financial Times reports that “The delay to publication of Toshiba’s earnings came as the company said lawyers were examining claims by a whistleblower in the US that Westinghouse mishandled its takeover of Stone & Webster.”

Toshiba’s losses stem from its construction of new nuclear plants in the United States. The collapse of Toshiba will result in the halting of all new nuclear power plant construction by its US-based subsidiary, Westinghouse.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Vitamin_N

[videtur quam contuor]

Useless fact: Toshiba is a Japanese acronym (of sorts). Japanese characters equal sounds, Vowel+consonant(s), not letters so three characters would have three sounds. In this case it is the first two words of the original company name.  Tokyo Electricity Company. Tokyo Shibaura Denki. TO (kyo) SHIBA(ura) denki. Denki=electricity.TO-ShiBa

[Matthew.Brendan]

I know my Toshiba laptop was pretty crap, what does that portend?!

[CLT2014]

Lowe's just axed 11% of their workforce at HQ in Mooresville. 430 people terminated

They will be posting 100 job opening in the next couple weeks for newly created positions that address the latest trends in retail that the terminated employees can apply for.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article134017739.html

Edited February 21, 2017 by CLT2014

[cjd5050]

39 minutes ago, CLT2014 said:

Lowe's just axed 11% of their workforce at HQ in Mooresville. 430 people terminated

They will be posting 100 job opening in the next couple weeks for newly created positions that address the latest trends in retail that the terminated employees can apply for.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article134017739.html

Ouch.  

I feel bad now for shopping at home depot.  Have both right down the road from me and they are directly across the street from each other.  The primary difference between the two is Lowe's has speed bumps that really are not needed so I avoid going there mostly because of that.  

[KJHburg]

I have always been a Lowes guy I buy a lot of appliances and they have a great selection always have and they support this region and state which is important to me. Hopefully these 100 open positions will be filled by Lowes people and the others are absorbed into the region. We have several big retailers based in the area like Food Lion, Harris Teeter's major office here, Belks. Not sure if Dollar Tree owned Family Dollar would hire anyone as they are moving many jobs to Va. 

 

[NYCLT]

9 hours ago, KJHburg said:

I have always been a Lowes guy I buy a lot of appliances and they have a great selection always have and they support this region and state which is important to me. Hopefully these 100 open positions will be filled by Lowes people and the others are absorbed into the region. We have several big retailers based in the area like Food Lion, Harris Teeter's major office here, Belks. Not sure if Dollar Tree owned Family Dollar would hire anyone as they are moving many jobs to Va. 

 

This definitely is not good as these are talented people being let go who a minority of which will get picked back up, some potentially at vendors in the area but mostly heading to jobs out of Charlotte

[HopHead]

Sucks that Lowe's made these cuts, but it's weird. My LinkedIn page is filled with new local Lowe's job openings (mostly IT and corporate stuff, not actual stores). So they are indeed shuffling around these jobs to different areas to increase efficiencies. There will still probably be a net loss, but a number of those jobs cuts will be filled with something new. Like others here, I always go to Lowe's. I'll be damned if I will ever give Arthur Blank a dime of my paycheck.

[tozmervo]

As part of ESPN's continuing implosion, they're shuttering their ESPNU studio in University City and moving all of the broadcast operations to their HQ in Connecticut. The move will result in at least 10 folks loosing jobs locally. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article146919714.html

[KJHburg]

1 hour ago, tozmervo said:

As part of ESPN's continuing implosion, they're shuttering their ESPNU studio in University City and moving all of the broadcast operations to their HQ in Connecticut. The move will result in at least 10 folks loosing jobs locally. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article146919714.html

Fox Sports 1 is in the University area on Harris Blvd. ESPN offices are in Ballantyne. 10 people were laid off but mainly in production of shows but they will still keep an office in Charlotte. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/04/26/espn-cuts-affect-unknown-number-of-clt-employees.html

ESPN is having big problems you are right!

Edited April 26, 2017 by KJHburg

[Norm2]

2 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Fox Sports 1 is in the University area on Harris Blvd. ESPN offices are in Ballantyne. 10 people were laid off but mainly in production of shows but they will still keep an office in Charlotte. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/04/26/espn-cuts-affect-unknown-number-of-clt-employees.html

ESPN is having big problems you are right!

 

ESPN is one of the most, if not THE most expensive cable channel. They are one of the companies that cause Cable providers to raise rates all of the time. As more and more people have now cut the cord on cable or slimmed down to cheaper cable packages, ESPN is now hemorrhaging money.

[HopHead]

What's sad about the whole ESPN thing is that it's obvious they are focusing their cuts on the people that actually do quality reporting versus the ones that bring mindless talk show babbling. Blows my mind that they put a priority on shows like First Take versus someone like Ed Werder who does really good NFL reporting. No wonder they are hemorrhaging money. The SEC Network from what I saw will still remain based here as will (likely) the upcoming ACC Network. 

[jednc]

18 minutes ago, HopHead said:

What's sad about the whole ESPN thing is that it's obvious they are focusing their cuts on the people that actually do quality reporting versus the ones that bring mindless talk show babbling. Blows my mind that they put a priority on shows like First Take versus someone like Ed Werder who does really good NFL reporting. No wonder they are hemorrhaging money. The SEC Network from what I saw will still remain based here as will (likely) the upcoming ACC Network. 

You'd think they'd move the whole dang thing to Charlotte if they're trying to cut costs.

[KJHburg]

Wells Fargo is cutting $2 Billion in expenses and while this may sound bad for Charlotte I would point to this one paragraph from this story in the Business Journal 

"To save costs moving forward, Wells Fargo says it will centralize operations, cut branches, consolidate facilities and reduce consulting and other third-party expenses. The bank says these “efficiency initiatives” will reduce expenses by $2 billion annually by the end of 2018, and those savings will be reinvested back into the business."

Maybe Wells will move even more jobs to this area from costly areas such as California which I think they are doing anyway. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/05/11/under-pressure-wells-fargo-announces-another-2b-in.html  Obviously there are some branch closings that will happen to Charlotte but I would imagine this would be jobs positive event for Charlotte due to already large concentration of people and the low cost of operating and living here. 

[KJHburg]

More Bad news and breaking news: CHARLOTTE is missing its big HEAD!

Metalmorphosis the moving huge stainless steel head is missing from the Whitehall Corporate Park. All that left is a metal pole! It is being worked on, was it damaged or did the Russians have something to do with it? I know we have journalists on this forum please look into this. This photo is from today and then a Youtube link to what we are looking for. This is a Charlotte landmark and it needs to be returned to rightful place overlooking this office park. 

 

Edited May 19, 2017 by KJHburg

[videtur quam contuor]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

More Bad news and breaking news: CHARLOTTE is missing its big HEAD!

Metalmorphosis the moving huge stainless steel head is missing from the Whitehall Corporate Park. All that left is a metal pole! It is being worked on, was it damaged or did the Russians have something to do with it? I know we have journalists on this forum please look into this. This photo is from today and then a Youtube link to what we are looking for. This is a Charlotte landmark and it needs to be returned to rightful place overlooking this office park. 

 

KJ:

I cannot believe that it s just February of last year you joined. You travel to places I do not often go and you photograph everything there and offer it to us here. Thank you for your effort. More than liking the post I very much like and appreciate the poster.

[KJHburg]

7 minutes ago, tarhoosier said:

KJ:

I cannot believe that it s just February of last year you joined. You travel to places I do not often go and you photograph everything there and offer it to us here. Thank you for your effort. More than liking the post I very much like and appreciate the poster.

My job requires me all over the city, the whole 7-8 county metro so I get around for sure. When the BIG head gets back in place you need to see it is a must see for residents and tourists alike. A German count who owns the office park paid for it. 

[CLT704]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/banking/article152038502.html 

Now this is some actual bad news, it shows we are slipping. I think Wells needs to move their HQ here