Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML
During recent years the airfreight situation at the airport Zurich has changed drastically. Increasing safety regulations, the strategical positioning of the homecarrier SWISS within the Star Alliance and the growing importance of airfreight are the most important aspects.
The study which Fraunhofer IML carried out on behalf of Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) should determine the required freight space as a basis for the long-term planning of the "Zone Ost" and to identify the development steps. After the current equipment, capacity and utilization of the freight facilities had been recorded and evaluated the Fraunhofer team determined the future demand. The demand was calculated based on an updated estimation of location-specific volumes and developments of all relevant freight flows as well as on the frameconditions and strategies of the airport and the customers. The researchers developed different scenarios which considered the EU safety concept as well as the assessment of the multi-client capability of the existing equipment. The scenarios were represented in the layout and evaluated before the background of the temporal development, a possible migration and the fulfillment of demands.
The results of this study pointed out that the designated planning areas suitably and sufficiently meet the long-term requirements of the airfreight section. Furthermore, it provided concrete recommendations for an optimal, customer-oriented development of the freight area which will be part of the airport‘s master plan.