EuroAirport aims for larger share of cargo traffic

EuroAirport has inaugurated a Euro40m cargo terminal at the French hub which is situated close to Swiss city Basel, a major European pharma industry cluster.
EuroAirport Cargo Terminal, located in the tri-national Upper Rhine Region that shares borders with Switzerland and Germany, will enter operation in January 2015. 
The new facility – financed entirely by EuroAirport – has a total surface area of 21,000 sq m and offers temperature-controlled storage between 15°C and 25°C that complies with the cold chain requirements of the pharmaceutical industry and regional logistics companies.
Today, 85% of the new cargo terminal premises in the southwest of the airport are occupied by seven major tenants: Swissport, Cargologic, DHL Logistics, Planzer and Air Cargo Service (ACS) on the Swiss side, with WFS/SFS and ACL on the French side.
EuroAirport said it is pursuing an objective to increase its share of the region’s air freight volume from around 20% today to 50% by 2020. It plans to raise the number of cargo flights from four per week at present “to 10–12 per week by 2020”.
As of September this year, three new daily general cargo flights operated by ABC, Emirates SkyCargo and LAN Cargo have been added to the weekly flight already run by Korean Air.
Said EuroAirport: “This development confirms the interest in new infrastructures that guarantee an uninterrupted cold chain. It also underlines the attractiveness of EuroAirport, with its direct access to three countries – France, Switzerland and Germany – and proximity to Basel, site of some of the world’s major pharmaceutical enterprises.”
At the end of 2013, freight activity remained at 2012 levels, reporting a volume of 94,000 tons, of which 40% was flown freight (general cargo and express freight). EuroAirport expects its freight activity to increase by five per cent at the end of 2014.
With a total of 900 jobs at the end of 2013, the general cargo and express freight companies form the second largest job sector at EuroAirport.