Freight DHL starts construction work for Hannover Airport freight hub

During a groundbreaking ceremony, Ulf-Birger Franz (Head of the Department of Economic Affairs, Transport and Education Hannover Region), Mirko Heuer (Mayor of the City of Langenhagen), Thomas Vogel (COO DHL Freight), Bernhard Wirth (CEO DHL Freight Germany & Austria), Gero Schiffelmann, Member of the Management Board DHL Freight Germany) and Hartmut Köhler (Branch Manager Hannover, DHL Freight) celebrated the start of construction work.

The state-of-the-art freight hub at Hannover-Langenhagen will be built on a 63,000 square meter big area in the Airport Business Park. The hub is expected to be commissioned in mid-2019.

Overall, the new facility measures 8,300 square meters and features over 80 loading bays. In the future, 260 employees will be engaged at Langenhagen.

Thomas Vogel, COO DHL Freight explained: "The new freight hub is an important investment in our existing European network and reflects our FREIGHT 2020 corporate strategy. Here in Hannover - Langenhagen, we will offer sustainable, efficient and customer-oriented road freight and logistics solutions with the highest service quality, bringing us a good deal closer to our goal of becoming the undisputed market leader in overland transport services."

DHL will not only use the center to handle freight for the company´s network, but it will also serve as test-project for innovative technologies for the future terminal. The company will install a control center to record all information regarding shipments and operations in general. With the data, DHL Freight is seeking to test and then optimize the terminal.

According to DHL Freight, the new location will play an important role for DHL´s FTL (Full Truck Load) service.

Hannover Airport is an international airport, located in the more Northern part of Germany. In 2017, it handled over 5,8 Million passengers, which makes the airport being the ninth biggest in the country. Originally, the airport was established in 1952 and counted over 75,000 aircraft movements in 2017, while dispatching 18.270 tons of freight.