Budapest Airport has opened BUD Cargo City, a €50 million facility dedicated to airfreight with all warehouse and office space leased out to tenants.
The terminal includes a 11,200 sq m forwarder building and 21,600 sq m of warehouse space, with a 32,000 sq m cargo apron, allowing two Boeing 747s to be serviced simultaneously.
Celebi Aviation Holding and Menzies Aviation are two of the handling companies moving into the facility, which is part of BUD’s Development Programme.
Rene Droese, chief property and cargo officer for Budapest Airport says the Cargo City is a significant milestone to establish the airport as the air cargo hub for Central and Eastern Europe.
He says: “BUD Cargo City provides a state of the art, efficient, linear and rapid logistics environment for our air cargo community and opens up a world of potential for our partners with high quality increased capacity to build new connections to all continents, especially Asia and North America.”
Phase 1 is complete, boosting capacity to 250,000 tonnes a year, and phase 2, the forwarder building will be handed over in January 2020 to clients including Kuehne + Nagel and cargo-partner, among others.
Celebi Ground Handling Hungary handles 90,000 tonnes per year in Budapest, and has invested in a two-phase infrastructure development plan in anticipation of air cargo growth.
Atilla Korgmazoglu, president ground handling and cargo EMEA for Celebi Aviation Holding says: “We have implemented a two-phase construction plan in order to meet growing air cargo volumes at Budapest, and phase one is already underway with a 22,000 m2 area that includes 12,000 m2 warehouse space, 1,600 m2 office and social areas, and 8,000 m2 manoeuvring and equipment parking areas, we will install a brand new ETV to increase the capacity for phase 2.”
In line with the Airport Plan, Celebi has upgraded capacity with a new 35-tonne high loader for access to dedicated areas for special cargo handling.
Korgmazoglu says: “We are confident that the new Cargo City will enable us to meet the expectations of our employees and customers on a higher level via the better work environment and increased service level.”
The opening ceremony was attended by government officials, including Levente Magyar, deputy minister of the ministry of foreign affairs and trade, who commented: “The traffic data and the market have long required the increasing of capacities and we expect Budapest Airport to continue investing at the airport. The government and its official bodies will provide every assistance for this.”
