Leipzig/Halle announces long term plans for the cargo division

June 6, 2019: Leipzig/Halle GmbH will be investing about half a billion euros in expansion work during the next few years, including the construction of a second Cargo City, informed the Central Germany airport yesterday, after receiving approval from the Supervisory Board.

The Supervisory Board at Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG has unanimously cleared the way for investments in new apron areas, logistics and office buildings in the northern and southern parts of Leipzig/Halle Airport. This will create new direct and indirect jobs in various areas of activity the whole region will benefit from in the long term.

Out of the many developments that have been approved, the most important is that Leipzig/Halle Airport will gain a second Cargo City in the northern part of the airport site.

Taken together with the expansion of the DHL hub, which was announced with DHL during the autumn of last year, the planned investments will total about half a billion euros during the next few years, which according to the airport is the largest investment package for the Central German airports since the 1990s. The airport company will bear the responsibility for the investments.

Freight volumes at Leipzig/Halle Airport have increased more than tenfold since 2007. The growth driver at Leipzig/Halle is primarily the DHL hub. However, even without DHL, the freight business is developing positively. More than 50 cargo airlines are now operating flights to LEJ. It is already very clear that this growth trend will continue in future, too.

Gotz Ahmelmann, CEO of Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG said: “I’m delighted that the shareholders are supporting our course with such commitment. We can now continue to expand our excellent market position for cargo. Leipzig/Halle Airport is already the fifth-largest freight hub in Europe and the second-largest in Germany. And this growth is continuing: we were able to set a new record with freight volumes totalling 110,419 tonnes as recently as March 2019.”

Leipzig/Halle Airport handled approximately 2.57 million passengers in 2018 and about 1.22 million tonnes of air freight. This makes it Germany’s second-largest cargo airport.