French express carrier Sodexi, owned by Air France-KLM (65 per cent) and GeoPost (35 per cent), hasstarted operating a new express freight hub at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, in cooperation
with Aéroports de Paris.As an investor and end user of the hub, Sodexi invested €22 million in the 7,600 sqm expressfreight facility, with its shareholders contributing funds to finance the logistics building. Itsconstruction was completed in autumn last year after a long-term building lease had been signed inOctober 2012. Aéroports de Paris, which operates the airports of Charles de Gaulle, Orly and LeBourget, acts as owner and land developer in the agreement.
The new facility comprises around 7,000 sqm of warehouse space with the capacity to processup to 55,000 tonnes per year from over 160,000 commercial flights at Charles de Gaulle Airport.Around 600 sqm have been allocated for offices and a semi-underground car park with 200 spaces,manoevring areas and a number of green spaces.
Jérôme Balbi, Managing Director of Sodexi, said: “With the new express hub, located next tothe passenger terminals, Sodexi has acquired a modern, high-performance facility, ideal forprocessing flows of international express freight, particularly e-commerce related. Located just afew minutes from the aircraft parking stands, we will be able to offer our customers extremelyrapid transit times between two commercial flights, just like passengers making a connection atParis-Charles de Gaulle. A parcel collected at the end of the previous afternoon in Hong Kong willarrive in Paris early in the morning and can be connected straight away to a flight to southernEurope or Scandinavia, for example, with delivery in the early afternoon.
“High-performance sorting, electronic customs clearance linked to French customs, thepowerful Air France and Skyteam aviation network and an ideal geographic position in France are themajor assets that will help to make Charles de Gaulle a central European hub for the processing ofinternational express flows,” he added.
Aéroports de Paris ranks among the European leaders in air freight, including mail. In 2013,it processed nealy 2.2 million tonnes of freight and mail, including 2.1 million tonnes at Charlesde Gaulle Airport.
With over 500,000 sqm of buildings and 80 aircraft stands specifically dedicated to freight,Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport is an important hub that plays host to all major internationalplayers and houses the FedEx European hub. The freight business at the airport generates over15,000 direct and more than 40,000 indirect jobs.
