With the ceremonial turning of dirt, the Birmingham Airport Authority is preparing to start construction of a $27 million Air Cargo Facility at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. The new building will be home base for a new line of business that includes weekly, scheduled international cargo flights from Stuttgart, Germany.

“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 Birmingham Airport Authority. “We have the infrastructure in place. We have the best partners in the business. And we have the determination to continue building on what we established earlier this year.”

Back in February, the airport joined with global logistics leader Kuehne+Nagel in a partnership that is bringing regularly scheduled, international cargo flights into Birmingham. The partnership is poised to, over time, transform Birmingham into a long-term gateway to and from the Southeastern corridor of the U.S.

Kuehne+Nagel is currently operating out of a temporary hangar but will move into the new Air Cargo Facility once it’s completed. Construction is expected to take 10 months and be completed in spring 2024.

The building will feature:

• 53,000 square feet with 48,500 square feet of warehouse space.
• 17 bays in the load docks and five airside bay doors.
• Four rollup doors (two airside and two landside).
• Office space with conference rooms, restrooms and breakrooms.
• A mezzanine area over the office space.

Last year, there were 1,564 air cargo operations at the airport that moved almost 21 metric tons of goods into the region. Those numbers are expected to increase with the twice-weekly international cargo flights that began last month. Birmingham is viewed as ideal for building additional cargo business due to its central location and because getting cargo out to customers will not be slowed by the congested conditions that exist at large hub airports.

First air cargo flight from Stuttgart, Germany, arrives at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport from Alabama News Center on Vimeo.

This new operation at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport mirrors what is happening in some other secondary markets across the country. Smaller airports that have the infrastructure in place and the warehousing capacity to offer are capitalizing on an industry desire to get cargo out to customers faster, cheaper and on a more predictable schedule.

Learn more about operations and flights at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport at flybirmingham.com.