Budapest Airport (BUD) is looking to the recently inaugurated first phase of its 'Cargo City' terminal to accelerate its emergence as a major hub in the Central and Eastern European region for the booming cross-border e-commerce flows from China and Asia.
The new €50 million facility increases the Hungarian gateway’s handling capacity to 250,000 tonnes, including 50,000 tonnes for express freight. Last year, BUD handled just over 146,000 tonnes of cargo shipments.
BUD’s cargo strategy focuses largely on becoming a major distribution and logistics base for China through cooperation agreements with Chinese airports and establishing direct flights to Budapest.
Earlier this year, its cargo team were in China to discuss and develop the airport’s growing role as Central and Eastern Europe’s e-commerce gateway. Among those attending the event were Chinese e-commerce giants Yunda Express, STO Express and SF Express, Qingdao and Xi’an airports, and the Consul General of Hungary in Shanghai.
Speaking at a media conference held ahead of the opening of Cargo City, Rene Droese, BUD’s Chief Property and Cargo Officer, said: “The game-changer that Cargo City represents is that everything is under the same roof and not spread out over several different sites as has been the case until now. This will impact the entire handling operation with more efficient and faster services now possible and at a competitive price. It’s a big step forward.
“We believe that as an airport we have done our part in providing the infrastructure and facilities. Now it's a matter of the shippers, the airlines and the cargo market generating the volumes.”
The two handling companies, Turkey’s Çelebi Aviation and the UK’s Menzies Aviation, housed in Cargo City’s 21,600 sqm warehouse, have been quick to highlight the potential of Budapest as a cargo hub and also how the new facilities will transform handling processes.
Çelebi's 12,000 sqm of space in the new warehouse will allow it to increase its annual handling capacity from 90,000 tonnes to 140,000 tonnes and this will be increased further through an already-planned extension to 15,000 sqm, explained Atilla Korkmazoglu, the group's president, EMEA, Ground Handling & Cargo.
The backbone of Budapest's freighter operations is Cargolux with seven flights a week from Hong Kong and Zhengzhou (central China) while Air Bridge Cargo is also serving the airport bringing in Chinese and Asian-origin goods via its Moscow Sheremetyevo hub.
Cargo traffic has also been boosted by the bellyhold space offered by the growing number of passenger services from China into the Hungarian capital. They include Air China, from Beijing and Shanghai Airlines (a subsidiary of China Eastern) from Shanghai and which is poised to link the Chinese cities of Xian and Chengdu to BUD.
Droese noted that just as Liège Airport has emerged as an air cargo hub in western Europe for Chinese-origin goods, BUD is eyeing a similar role in its part of the continent.
“Feedback we're getting suggests that airlines are also looking for gateways in eastern Europe and Budapest can be a perfect fit in this respect given our new cargo facilities and the additional handling capacity and the land available for expansion. So, we expect more flights and more cargo volumes but it takes time.”
However, no mention was made at the press conference of Chinese logistics company, STO Express, launching scheduled B747 freighter flights to Budapest following the signing of a cooperation agreement at the end of last year with the Hungarian airport and Turkish and European third-party logistics specialist, Ekol. This was designed to establish a cargo transportation network to deliver e-commerce products arriving from China to customers in Europe.
In 2017, both TNT Express and DHL Express opened new facilities at BUD as part of the airport's €160 million investment programme in cargo.
