Brandon Fried, executive director of the Airforwarders Association (AfA), told Bloomberg that “there will be one big political fight to stop it.” More than 600 forwarding companies have operated at JFK since the 1960s and would probably not be willing to move to the Newburgh, N.Y.-based facility, AfA said. In addition, more than half of the airfreight sent through JFK is carried in the belly cargo holds of passenger jets, which would be even less unlikely to transfer their flights to the spacious but less convenient SWF, a former military facility. Should there be a transfer of these services to SWF, “there will be a huge shift in the cargo transport in and out of the New York area, and it would result in a huge hit to the economy,” Fried said.
