In a related development, Lythgoe said that his company, Austin, Texas-based Lynxs Group, now owns 100 percent of Alaska Cargo Port. Fifty percent of the facility was previously owned by Williams Companies. Lynxs Group owns 10 cargo ports across the United States.

Jeff Cook, spokesman for Williams in Fairbanks, said the transaction closed June 1. Williams is planning to sell all of its Alaska assets, including a refinery near Fairbanks, and Lynxs Group had a first option on the 50 percent share of Alaska Cargo Port owned by Williams, Cook said. The refining company retains a contract to supply jet fuel to the facility, Cook said.

Additional development at the cargo port could include another 100,000-square-foot building and three to five more aircraft parking positions.

That growth, however, hinges on a more robust economy, the ability to find anchor tenants and the improved financial health of the airline industry.

"It depends on the airlines and what kind of financial position they're in," Lythgoe said.

"There's a reason it hasn't happened here," he said. "The airlines are in no condition to expand. They don't have a budget for this. When they get their house in order, we think that it will happen."

Lythgoe met with reporters July 30 at the airport. Several of the journalists were from foreign logistics and air-cargo publications, who were in Anchorage as part of efforts by the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. to raise the city's profile among companies that could come to town. The group included writers from England, Germany, Quebec, Hong Kong and the eastern United States.

Kevin Pearson, vice president of business development for AEDC, hopes the journalists will spread the good word about cargo business opportunities in Anchorage.

"We really wanted to get the word out that instead of being in the middle of nowhere, we're in the middle of everywhere," Pearson said. "The reason we are marketing the Alaska Cargo Port is because they have space available and they can expand quickly without waiting for permits. And we feel cargo operations have the greatest potential for economic growth within the Anchorage bowl."

The Alaska Cargo Port is located in the airport's north airpark, which has been the focal point for new major cargo development in the last 10 years. Federal Express and UPS cargo hubs are located there. Northwest, KLM and Atlas also operate there.

So far, the cargo port in Anchorage is about half built at a cost of $25 million, Lythgoe said.

"It's comfortably making its way despite 9-11 and SARS and the Asian flu (economic crisis)," he said. "The cargo industry stayed fairly healthy through all of this. The passenger side is killing them -- right now it's survival."

Northwest Airlines was the first major tenant at the cargo port and the facility was built to Northwest specifications. United Airlines and Atlas Air Inc., also use the port.

Lythgoe said Lynxs is in negotiations with several airlines, including one Asian carrier.

And, he said, "we're talking to two European companies now that are very interested in this project."

"It's like a three-legged stool," Pearson said. "We've got the U.S. and Asia. Now we need that third leg going into Europe."

AEDC hosted eight visiting journalists who received briefings from the Anchorage mayor and ADEC officials, the state international trade office, the port, the University of Alaska Anchorage, FedEx, UPS and Northwest Airlines.

The journalists included Angela Greiling Keane, associate editor of Traffic World, a logistics news weekly in Washington, D.C.; Bjorn Helmke, editor of Deutsche Logistik-Zeitung magazine in Hamburg, Germany; Gerald Fisher, editor of Logistics and Transport Focus in the United Kingdom; Karen Thuermer of Alexandria, Va., a freelance writer representing five magazines; Marc Duhamel of Logistics Magazine, a French-English publication based in Montreal; Siu Wai Cheung of the Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao and Roland Lindner, a writer for the Frankfurt, Germany daily newspaper.