Finally, the green light has been given to erect new cargo handling facilities in Frankfurt’s Cargo City South.
The news came in an announcement on 11. November from operator Fraport who in their letter state that “the expansion of Cargo City South (CCS) is seen as a means of strengthening
Frankfurt’s position as a leading air cargo center in the worldwide transport chain.”

The announcement came out on the same day when the Hessian Transport Minister was informing members of the German Air Cargo Club (ACD) about the need to couple expansion at the airport with
present noise abatement rulings.
Well! - We wonder how many of the freight managers who were present at the ACD will go back to their offices and consider investing in the planned new facilities in CCS.
The new cargo warehouses and office space are planned to be built on land which has already been prepared since a couple of years.
Old buildings were at that time removed, trees felled and the land flattened ready for building.
The area is just behind buildings 554 and 555 and more or less adjacent to the new Neutral Transfer Point (NFÜP) and spreads over a total of 27 hectares.
Access to the new area is seen as being easier from gate 31, which will surely take off some pressure on truck traffic presently accessing from gate 32 on the other side of CCS.
It seems from the area plan presented, that just over 50% of total available area for expansion has been allotted to this first building segment.
Finally, a good move in our view.
Space is getting tight all over CCS and the increased truck traffic through the cargo handling area has lead to increased loading and offloading times at almost all ground handlers’
facilities.
The question remains as to who will be interested in committing to renting new warehouses and offices as of mid 2017.
Fraport’s notification shows the conditions which have to be adhered to in order to be able to get onto short list of applicants.
Here are some of them:
- written interest must be presented to Fraport by latest 10 December of this year.
- there is a long list of legal and company internal documents which have to be presented by 10 December.
- applicants must be willing to rent a minimum of 3.330 square meters of warehouse space and office space rental should not be less than 20% of the warehouse space.
- rental agreements will run for period of 7 - possibly 10 years and are planned to begin as of mid 2017.
- warehouse rental is shown at €9,50 / sqm and office space at €14,50 / sqm
An interesting aspect is that Fraport note that interested parties should signal in writing their acceptance of the rental prices shown in the notification and also whether (if they wish) they
are willing to offer to pay a higher price.
Is this then a matter of the highest bidder gets the space?
It will be interesting to see which of the present CCS tenants will want to move to the new area and whether Fraport can attract companies outside, or from other airports to invest.
John Mc Donagh
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