Budapest Airport has begun the construction of its new dedicated freight centre called Cargo City, which is part of its €160 million BUD:2020 Development Programme.
Cargo City Will cost €32.6 million and is for a 20,000 m² cargo handling facility as well as new dedicated B747-F freighter stands. The Budapest Airport development will centralise cargo operations as well as extending the airports handling capacity to better handle increasing air cargo volumes at the airport in coming years.
The airport has seen a volume increase of 39% over the last two years, or roughly 127,145 tons of cargo in 2017, as well as a further 15.5% increase in tonnage between January and August this year.
The BUD Cargo City program includes two state-of-the-art express facilities that were opened in 2017 with a total area of 16,000 m², and were opened to supply increasing volumes from the express and e-commerce businesses.
“This is an exciting milestone for the Hungarian cargo community. Following on from our infrastructure developments for the integrator market, our aim is to provide the ideal environment for air cargo with our Cargo City project,” said René Droese, Executive Director Property and Cargo at Budapest Airport.
“With the start of AirBridgeCargo and Silk Way West Airlines services in 2018, we now have five freighter operators at BUD.
“Volumes from our existing full-freighter partners, such as Cargolux, Turkish Cargo, and Qatar Airways Cargo, are also increasing.
“The cargo connectivity of BUD is also continuously expanding via the new belly cargo services of LOT, American Airlines, and Qatar Airways, as well as Emirates, Air China, and Air Canada Rouge.”
President of the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA) Róbert Ésik added, “Hungary is the world’s seventh most popular investment destination, according to IBM’s Global Location Trends 2017 Annual Report.
“The Cargo City development at BUD supports and warmly welcomes the new investments in Hungary.”
Jost Lammers, CEO of Budapest Airport said, “Air cargo is of strategic importance to BUD, and Cargo City will ensure that we continue to provide our growing customer base with efficient, modern facilities, so that they can thrive in our booming catchment area.”
