The new EUR 300 million DHL Express European air hub at Leipzig/Halle airport will go into fulloperation at the end of March at the start of the summer 2008 flight schedule. The express operator
is also planning to launch rail cargo feeder services between Leipzig and Frankfurt in the summer.DHL has built up its intra-European flights to and from Leipzig over the last two years, andtransferred its intercontinental flights from Cologne to Leipzig last October. In the final step,most of the Brussels hub flights will be moved there, leaving just a small number of services atthe Belgian capital.
Once the Leipzig hub is fully operating, more than 60 DHL own or contracted planes will takeoff and land at the airport every night, and up to 2,000 tonnes of cargo will be handled daily. Atpresent, about 1,800 staff handle some 35 flights and up to 800 tonnes of cargo daily.
“We are on schedule and our work is now going into the decisive phase,” hub project managerMichael Reinboth told German news agency DPA. The hub will be ceremonially opened several monthslater, giving the company time to smooth out any initial operating difficulties. No officialopening date has yet been announced.
Reinboth also disclosed that DHL Express plans to run daily cargo trains with up to 16container wagons between Leipzig and Frankfurt Airport from the summer to transfer shipmentsbetween DHL-controlled flights at Leipzig and commercial flights at Frankfurt.
Leipzig will be the third intercontinental hub in the DHL Express worldwide air networkalongside Wilmington (USA) and Hong Kong.
