ABX Air saw its profit cut in half in the fourth quarter, to $9.1 million from $18.1 million the year before, as the cargo airline felt the impact of changes at DHL, its largest customer.

ABX also announced that DHL's network restructuring will hit the company this year as the express carrier pulls truck and handling services ABX had been performing into DHL's own system.

That part of the DHL business generated 15.2 percent of ABX net profit last year.

DHL parent Deutsche Post recently said it faces continued losses of customers and revenue in North America since service problems stemming from its hub consolidation last September at Wilmington, Ohio.

ABX said that hub consolidation pushed up its own labor and facilities costs and that it failed to meet DHL contract terms for large incentive payouts during the troubled changeover. The profit decline "was primarily due to lower attainment of the revenue incentives under the hub and line-haul services agreement" with DHL, the company said.

ABX said revenue in the last three months of 2005 rose to $397 million from $361 million a year earlier, but operating expenses rose to $386 million from $341 million. For all of 2005, it earned $30 million on $1.5 billion in revenue, compared with $36 million net on $1.2 billion in 2004.

ABX separately announced that DHL this spring will take over the line-haul trucking network that ABX now manages, and ABX will not operate an Allentown, Pa., hub for DHL after a new facility opens there in the third quarter.

ABX plans to add up to three 767 freighters this year for non-DHL customers, and five more 767s in 2007 and two in 2008, mostly for non-DHL customers.

John D. Boyd