Groundbreaking for new DHL Global Forwarding air freight center at Frankfurt Airport 

DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of DHL Group, and Fraport AG, the owner and operator of Frankfurt Airport (FRA), today officially began construction of a new air freight center at Frankfurt Airport. Tobias Schmidt, the CEO of DHL Global Forwarding Europe, and Anke Giesen, Fraport AG’s Executive Director Retail and Real Estate, led the official groundbreaking ceremony at Frankfurt Airport’s CargoCity South.

With the new air freight center, Fraport is developing a further site at CargoCity South in the immediate vicinity of Airport Gate 31. The new building on the approximately 55,000 square meter property will take about twelve months to complete. DHL Global Forwarding is expected to inaugurate the air cargo center in mid-2025. At this site, the company will primarily handle air freight for its German and international customers and manage charter flights with its in-house service provider StarBroker. The new cargo center and office complex will partly supplement the existing airport location, and offers not just additional transshipment space, but also room for the new StarBroker European headquarters of DHL Global Forwarding.

Construction of the state-of-the-art cargo center represents a further milestone in the successful development of Frankfurt Airport as a cargo and air freight hub. The latest ecological criteria play a crucial role in the new building. Overall, the new building at CargoCity South will provide about 24,500 square meters of new hall space and 3,000 square meters of flexible office and social space. The new complex also includes adequately dimensioned freight yards, 25 truck parking spaces and some 185 car parking spaces. Upon completion, the hall will have a total of 54 gates and cross-docks with generously dimensioned driving and shunting areas and additional, separate outdoor parking for trucks. The property is owned by Fraport AG and leased to DHL Global Forwarding.

“Today’s groundbreaking of this first-class air cargo center is part of the continuous development of Frankfurt Airport as Europe’s leading air freight hub,” explains Anke Giesen, Executive Director Retail and Real Estate at Fraport AG. “This building will meet the strictest ecological and economic requirements for modern freight handling facilities. As such, it will put our future tenant DHL Global Forwarding in the best position to take its air freight business to the next level. The realization of this complex project is also a testament to the extraordinarily broad portfolio and proven expertise of Fraport’s real estate development team.”

“Located in the heart of Europe, Frankfurt Airport is of central importance as an international hub for our global air freight network," explains the CEO of DHL Global Forwarding Europe, Tobias Schmidt. "We're very pleased that we were able to develop a larger, more sustainable site in close cooperation with Fraport. The newly created space will enable us to handle greater transport volumes for our customers even more quickly and efficiently.”