FedEx to benefit from Malpensa cargo expansion

FedEx Express and SEA, the Milan airport management company, have started construction on a new €15m operations base for the US parcels giant at the Italian hub.
At more than 35,000 sq m, the highly-automated structure will triple the size of the current FedEx Express facility in Malpensa to become FedEx’s third largest hub in Europe, after Paris and Cologne.
The new structure will be located within Malpensa’s Cargo City and will be completed by the summer of 2016.
This new development is part of the airport operator’s €100m investment plan to expand freight traffic infrastructure in the southern area of Cargo City.
In addition, FedEx Express plans to invest “several million euros” in equipment, systems and facilities for the new structure.
The expansion of Cargo City, where the FedEx Express facility is located, will double the airport’s freight capacity, adding three new warehouses of more than 15,000 sq m each to the two existing ones of 20,000 sq m apiece. 
Malpensa currently moves about 500,000 cargo tons a year. The new investment will see Malpensa reach an annual handling capacity of about one million tons within two years.
FedEx Express is the fourth-largest customer of Malpensa airport for cargo and is the first courier directly connected with the US thanks to the direct freighter flight between Milan Malpensa and Memphis, the only express flight in freight transport on this route.
"Malpensa is the first cargo airport in Italy, and it handles 55% of total Italian goods traffic,” said Giulio De Metrio, chief operating officer of SEA. 
“It is also registering the fastest growth in Europe, reporting in 2014 a traffic increase by 9.1% compared to 2013.”
The hub continued this positive trend in 2015, with a further 8.5% increase in the first eight months compared to the same period in 2014, and a 20% rise over like period 2013.
Vito Bernardi, managing director, Properties and Fleet for FedEx EMEA said: "FedEx’s expansion in Malpensa is part of a broader growth strategy in the European and MEISA regions (Middle East, Indian Subcontinent & Africa), that saw the opening of more than 100 new branches in three years, the acquisition of three local companies (France, Poland and South Africa) and the hiring of more than 6,400 new team members. 
“The recent investments of the company in Italy fall within the same strategy, with 24 new branches opened in less than three years, 300 jobs created, and the introduction of the first and only direct flight from Italy to the FedEx global hub in Memphis, Tennessee.”
FedEx expects to handle 20,000 daily shipments through the new structure and 44 weekly flights to and from Malpensa.

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