DHL Iberia has started construction of a new terminal at Vitoria airport and is increasingcapacity with new regional centres under an investment programme in Spain.
DHL will invest €7 million on the new 12,000 sqm facility at the airport in northern Spain,close to the French border. The terminal, due to open in September 2006, will include a 3,600 sqmplant designed for sorting and distribution of parcels, and 1,400 sqm of office space. In additionto air freight management, the plant will have 12 land transport loading docks and capacity tohandle 5,000 shipments per hour.
DHL said it regards Vitoria airport as its strategic operations centre for air freight to andfrom Spain, Portugal and south-west France. An average of 100 tonnes of freight pass throughVitoria daily between 18 air and 25 overland transport operations. The company moved itsdistribution centre from Madrid to Vitoria in 1995, due to the airport’s strategic location and itsfocus on freight. In 2005 the volume of DHL shipments at Foronda reached 21,000 tonnes. Accordingto statistics provided the Spanish Airports and Air Navigation organisation, AENA, DHL handles alittle over half of the airport’s total cargo.
Separately, DHL Express has signed a contract to locate the new DHL Express Girona centre in theLa Selva industrial area close to the town in northern Catalonia. The company will invest over €5million in the centre which will be close to Girona airport. DHL said its Girona branch, with 3,300daily shipments on average last year, needed greater capacity. The new premises would have anautomatic sorting belt with a handling capacity of 2,700 parcels per hour.
In late January, DHL Iberia opened a new enlarged facility in Malaga in southern Spain providingair, ocean and ground transport services. The new terminal, which cost €4 million, covers 4,034sqm, has 46 loading docks for vehicles as well as an automatic conveyor belt with sorting capacityof 2,700 parcels per hour. DHL Malaga processes an average of 2,450 shipments daily, moving over6,600 packages and a total of 136,810 kilograms of freight a day.
