After having successfully developed the initial concept for the CargoCity South at Frankfurt Main Airport, the experts of Fraunhofer IML Project Center Aviation Logistics were commissioned by the owning and operating company Fraport, to continue and expand the concept into the future.
Corresponding to the airports expansion plan, there is 27 hectares of designated airfreight handling area aligning to the existing CargoCity South. Aiming to conserve the excellent current market position among competitors, the airport needs to extend infrastructure and services towards market participants in the airfreight industry.
The Fraunhofer experts determined customer requirements in interviews with representatives of all relevant market participants. Afterwards, they generated design alternatives regarding real estate, air and land connections and other airfreight related facilities. Based on that, four basic layouts with different target characteristics adaptive, effective, process-optimized and conventional were developed.
The selected layout provides the highest area efficiency and meets customer requirements best. One of the outstanding features of this version is its innovative concept for handling airfreight units between air and landside. It minimizes security efforts concerning personnel and vehicles and allows a bottleneck free apron transport to the airplane.