Swissport opens sustainable Vienna cargo centre

Swissport has officially inaugurated a new 8,000 sq m air cargo centre near Vienna Airport – its second facility to serve air cargo customers in Vienna. The new facility is connected with Swissport’s on-airport cargo centre by a dedicated electric truck, the first of its kind in Swissport’s growing global network of air cargo centres.

Swissport continues to aggressively grow its air cargo business to participate in strong global demand for air cargo logistics and to capture additional market share. With a second cargo centre now operational in Vienna, Swissport can resolve local constraints and provide air carriers and forwarders in Vienna with additional capacity and more flexibility. The newly built 8,000 sqm facility is located in the DLH SkyLog Park in Fischamend in the immediate vicinity of Vienna Airport. Swissport is one of the first movers to the DLH SkyLog Park.

“We have invested in this state-of-the-art 8,000 sq m air cargo centre to support our growth ambitions in forwarder handling, and of course to serve existing and new airline customers with an even better product,” says Dirk Goovaerts, Swissport’s Global Cargo Chair. “We are very excited to more than double our capacity in Vienna and now have the infrastructure in place to support our vertical integration plans.”

The state-of-the-art building is set up for a superior environmental performance, featuring a 900,000kWh photovoltaic system. The system’s energy production corresponds to the annual electrical consumption of about 260 households. Swissport also relies on electric innovation on the ground: the centre in Fischamend is connected to the existing airside facility by a dedicated electric cargo shuttle. High-performance charging which is available on-site ensures that the Swissport e-truck can shuttle between the two locations without restrictions.

Henning Dieter, Head of Swissport Cargo Services Germany and Austria, comments: “We are pioneering e-mobility in air cargo handling here in Vienna together with Mercedes, Siemens, XL Forwarding & Transports and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Climate Action. The public charger available supports sustainable mobility as the dedicated Swissport e-truck shuttles air cargo between our two terminals at Vienna International.”

Swissport is working to make air cargo processes more sustainable and efficient to continue to improve its services while reducing specific CO² emissions. In 2021, Swissport handled around 70,000 tonnes of air cargo at Vienna Airport, where its capacity to support airlines and forwarders has now doubled. Within Austria, Swissport also operates a 3,500 sq m airside air cargo centre in a joint venture with Graz Airport.

With demand for global air cargo logistics already above pre-pandemic levels and persisting global capacity constraints in air and sea logistics, Swissport expects growth in air cargo handling to outperform general airport ground handling for some time. The company has made cargo a strategic priority and set ambitious goals to grow its second largest business line from 5.1 million in 2021 to over 6 million tonnes over the next couple of years.