Storage

With the economy in a tailspin, aircraft "boneyards" across the country are filling up with Boeing 747s and other jetliners no longer needed to ferry passengers. Call it airline limbo. Air carriers are grounding planes at a rate not seen since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and industry experts say this year is likely to set a record for planes sitting on the ground.

The Inland Empire has become a new battleground for unions looking to organize warehouse workers and broaden labor's clout in international trade, a $300-billion industry in the Southland. The fledgling movement is backed by a coalition of unions with more than 6 million members known as Change to Win.

Flowers from South America, once shipped to Southern California florists by truck from Miami, now are getting a quick trip to Los Angeles International Airport and a chilly welcome. Since early March, tulips, carnations, astromelias and roses have been flown to LAX, where a 12,700-square-foot cold-storage unit has been built to handle the airborne flowers and get them to consumers faster.

As the regional economy continues to sputter, vacancy rates are beginning to climb at warehouses and distribution centers for industrial goods, putting the already hard-hit Inland Empire at further risk of decline and threatening facilities in Los Angeles and Orange counties as well. After years of high occupancy and rapid construction of cargo hubs, immense spaces are now standing empty.