Airport cargo capability reaching new heights
To ensure its relevancy as a freight destination, Edmonton International Airport needed an overhaul of its cargo headquarters and the improved facility has already received rave reviews from industry members.
Cargojet announced Thursday it will be the first tenant at Cargo Village, a 50,000-square foot complex on the south end of the runway. The new development comes with a price tag of over $20 million, but should allow air-freight companies like Cargojet to better service its courier customers.
“It’s a state-of-the-art facility,” said Lyle Gibson, Cargojet’s general manager for Western Canada. “We wanted to improve our utility costs and the lighting and space was a much healthier environment.”
A few of the modern amenities at Cargo Village include additional temperature-controlled warehouse space and a cargo ramp with access to 236,000 square feet of cement apron space for aircraft. This allows carriers better access to the airport and a more efficient process for handling its cargo volume.
In turn, EIA is able to expand its profile as a gateway destination for cargo companies.
While the majority of the business will be at the airport, Cargo Village is also set up to provide distribution infrastructure for ground and rail companies.
These types of facilities are common at airports, but EIA officials feel Cargo Village gives Edmonton a leg up in a competitive marketplace.
The Cargojet announcement comes on top of news that FedEx is growing its fleet in the region.
The air-freight company is not only adding more service between Edmonton and its home base in Memphis, Tenn., it is also switching to wide-bodied Airbus 310s to handle added inventory.
The added capacity comes at an opportune time for the shipping company as FedEx predicts it will deliver more than 19 million packages globally on Monday, their busiest output of the year. This represents a 13 per cent increase from last year.
A FedEx spokesman said the expansion at EIA and northern Alberta’s status as an economic engine presented an opportunity for the company to beef up its output.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in both our passenger numbers and our cargo numbers [at EIA],” said Myron Keehn, the airport’s vicepresident for commercial development.
“The economic region in Alberta and the Territories is healthy and the growth in our resource sectors has been fairly dramatic.”
Backing up his statement was a 2011 Statistics Canada report that listed EIA as one of 11 airports nationwide to experience positive growth in the amount of cargo loaded and unloaded.
During the design process for Cargo Village, the developers at EIA worked with Cargojet to come up with a list of improvements.
For freight companies, having access to a cargo ramp is critical in terms of improving efficiency.
Keehn likened the addition of the ramp with being able to pull a plane right up to the front door.
More importantly, this reduces the amount of time perishable inventory — such as pharmaceutical products — has to remain outside in extreme weather conditions.
Cargojet will lease about 8,700 square feet of space at Cargo Village, almost double the size of its previous Edmonton facility.
The property is owned by Terracap Investments, a real estate and property management company out of Toronto.
On average, Cargojet brings in about 22,680 kilograms a day of inventory to EIA.
Inventory arrives overnight and is quickly moved on to couriers and freight forwarders.
This process occurs in as little as 45 minutes to ensure Cargojet makes 8 a.m. delivery deadlines.