Interview – Cologne seeks to defend status as Europe's top express airport
Cologne/Bonn Airport is determined to defend its position as Europe’s leading airport for express cargo despite the move of DHL to Leipzig, managing director Michael Garvens told CEP-Research in an interview. Integrators and low-cost passenger airlines will remain the two core businesses in the future, he said.
Cologne/Bonn, with some 700,000 tones of air freight in 2006, is Germany’s second-largest cargo airport behind Frankfurt but the largest for express traffic due to the UPS European air hub and DHL’s night flight hub. This year it is expecting to grow to about 740,000 tones.
“We have specialized in two areas: express freight and low-cost flights. They are the top two growth segments,” Garvens said. Referring to Leipzig’s ambition to overtake Cologne, he stressed: “We want to defend our position as Europe’s largest express freight airport.”
Cologne, with rapid access to Germany’s main export region of North Rhine-Westphalia, had a much better location than Leipzig, he noted. “Integrators are close to their customers in Cologne,” he declared. “I believe UPS and FedEx will have clear competitive advantages over DHL due to their location.”
The relocation of DHL and Lufthansa Cargo flights to Leipzig later this year and during early 2008 will mean the loss of some 215,000 tones of freight and some EUR 20 million in revenues. DHL, which will close down its larger European hub at Brussels next year, expects to handle some 700,000 tones a year at its new European express hub at Leipzig, which is due to go into service in August 2008.
The relocation of FedEx’s Central and Eastern European hub from Frankfurt to Cologne in 2010 will compensate for about one-third of the lost DHL tonnage. This will enable the airport to grow from about 550,000 tones to well over 600,000 tones in annual volumes that year.
Cologne/Bonn generates about 40 pct of its revenues, which grew to EUR 256 million last year, from freight, and expects to maintain this share in the future.
