50 More Cities to Be Served by Burlington Air Express : Transportation: Switching operations to airport in Toledo, Ohio, allows extension of next-morning deliveries by Irvine-based company.

Burlington Air Express, an Irvine air-freight company, said Monday that it will soon begin making next-morning deliveries to 50 additional U.S. cities.

That’s a result of the company’s moving its transportation hub last September from the airport at Ft. Wayne, Ind., to a controversial new hub in Toledo, Ohio.

The bigger Toledo airport allows Burlington to operate more flights, although some Toledo residents unsuccessfully opposed the increase in night flights that Burlington proposed.

Burlington carries heavy freight overnight, not the smaller and more profitable packages that Federal Express, United Parcel Service and Airborne whisk around the nation.

Burlington has about 60% of the market for shipments larger than 150 pounds, according to Jeffrey S. Medford, a stock analyst at Richmond, Va., brokerage Wheat First Butcher & Singer who follows Burlington’s parent company, Pittston Co. Pittston, of Stamford, Conn., also owns coal mines and the Brink’s Inc. armored-car company.

Some of the larger cities where Burlington is expanding its next-morning service include Washington, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Oakland and Seattle. The company says it now has next-day service to every large U.S. and Canadian city.

The overnight air-freight business came out of nowhere to grow into a multibillion-dollar industry in the 1980s. While most consumers are more familiar with the small-package market dominated by Federal Express, the market for heavier shipments that Burlington dominates has also grown rapidly.

Much of what 20-year-old Burlington moves is industrial equipment, and almost all its shipments go from one business to another.

But the expansion might not have been possible had the company not defeated a group of Toledo residents who sued to stop relocation of its hub. People who lived near the airport or who used a park nearby said the noise and inconvenience from more than 40 flights a night would greatly outweigh the negligible economic benefits and low-paying jobs of the new hub.

Clarence Thomas--in one of his last cases as a federal court judge before going on to the U.S. Supreme Court--ruled against the residents.

The recession has pinched the air-freight business, but Burlington says the new hub has helped keep the company financially healthy.

The company reported flat earnings of $876 million last year, up only slightly from 1990’s $868 million.

Operating profits, however, jumped to $19.8 million from $9.1 million, largely because, the company says, the new hub increased efficiency.