The Birmingham, Ala., city council cleared the final hurdles for building a new $27 million cargo facility at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport designed to handle shipping cargo to and from Germany.
The council approved vacating right of way at 1910 50th St. North to combine property for a new cargo warehouse at the airport, Al.com, a statewide online news source, reported June 6.
Marcelo Lima, vice president of planning and development at the Birmingham Airport Authority (BAA), who spoke to the council, said construction is now under way following a groundbreaking held May 24 for the new cargo facility.
The building will be used by Kuehne+Nagel, a Swiss global logistics company that launched transatlantic freighter flights to the airport in April.
"This has been a long-term goal of the airport and to see it all coming together is a huge win for our community," said Darlene Wilson, chair of the BAA.
She added that the partnership between the airport and Kuehne+Nagel is poised to transform Birmingham into a long-term gateway to and from the Southeastern United States.
"We have the infrastructure in place," Wilson explained, "we have the best partners in the business, and we have the determination to continue building on what we established earlier this year."
On April 2, Kuehne+Nagel began conducting flights twice a week on Boeing 747-8F jets between Stuttgart, Germany, and Birmingham. In turn, the BAA will build and own the facility and lease it to Kuehne+Nagel.
The Swiss firm, which operates in nearly 100 countries, is now using a temporary hangar at Birmingham, but plans to move into the new facility when it opens in the spring of 2024.
Construction on the cargo facility is expected to last about 10 months.
The cargo flights between Birmingham and Stuttgart are geared toward the automotive, aerospace and pharmaceutical industries. Mercedes-Benz, which manufactures automobiles and lithium-ion batteries in Alabama, is expected to be one of the beneficiaries of the improvements in supply chain efficiency as a result of the new cargo building.
Currently, shipments are processed at a Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International hangar owned by Kaiser Aircraft Industries, with flights operated by contract carriers such as Atlas Air and Cargolux.
Smaller Airports Can Often Move Cargo More Efficiently
The cargo building now under construction at the airport will encompass a total of 53,000 sq. ft. (including 48,500 sq. ft. of warehouse space), and 17 bays in the loading docks. Additionally, there will be five airside bay doors, four roll-up doors — two for airside loading and two for ground loading — plus space for offices, conference rooms, restrooms, breakrooms and a mezzanine area.
In 2022, there were 1,564 air cargo operations at Birmingham moving 21 metric tons of goods into the region, the BAA noted. Shipments have increased substantially since April with the twice weekly international cargo flights from Germany, according to Al.com.
"This is great news for businesses in our region that rely on air cargo arriving in an efficient and timely manner," Wilson told the Alabama news service.
The BAA's deal with Kuehne+Nagel is part of a larger trend of freight forwarders increasingly directing international cargo away from congested U.S. hubs to secondary airports.
Wilson said the BAA's central location in the state is ideal for building more cargo business because getting cargo out to customers will not be slowed by the conditions that exist at larger hub airports.
Hopes are that the new cargo facility will mirror what is happening in many other secondary markets across the country, BAA officials told Al.com, as smaller airports that have the infrastructure in place and the warehousing capacity are able to get cargo out to customers faster, cheaper and on a more predictable schedule.
"Our vision is to make Birmingham into a long-term gateway to and from the Southeastern corridor of the U.S. and we're pleased to be able to provide customers with alternative options that support their supply chain needs," said Greg Martin, senior vice president of air logistics at K+N, another Swiss company.
Kuehne+Nagel will subcontract warehouse operations management to ground handler Alliance Ground International.
The planned cargo facility builds follows the announcement earlier this year that Texas-based Million Air would invest a minimum of $32 million to add 94,000-sq. ft. of new development at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International, with operations already under way on the airport's eastside facilities.
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