Now visible from the sky above Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is a 65,000-square-foot array of solar panels on the south side of the airfield, helping to power DHL Express’s budding Atlanta regional cargo hub.
The solar array installed this year sits atop Cargo Building C, which the German delivery company uses to sort cargo, including packages flown in from its main Cincinnati hub.
Mike Parra, CEO of DHL Express Americas, said he also has his eye on Atlanta for another major innovation in sustainability.
DHL Express has ordered 12 electric cargo planes under development by Arlington, Washington,-based Eviation, with delivery expected in 2027. Pending certification and delivery, Atlanta would be “the first location... where we will launch the first fixed-wing electric plane within DHL,” Parra said.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who attended an event for the DHL regional hub on Thursday, said he was excited by the plans. “We’re cornering the market on batteries here in Georgia and electric vehicles, so we should be in the electric airspace as well,” Dickens said.
DHL Express, which handles international shipments to the United States, last year expanded its airport facility into a larger $84.5 million automated regional hub operation. The company transports packages on its own planes as well as in the bellies of other airlines’ passenger flights — so Atlanta’s flight connectivity as well as its extensive trucking network made it an attractive location for a hub to transport international shipments through Atlanta and to the Southeast.
DHL Express now subleases 100,000 square feet of space at Cargo Building C, and last October added flights from Brussels, Belgium to Atlanta with shipments processed through a U.S. Customs operation inside the new facility.
DHL is targeting zero emissions by 2050 for its logistics operation. The company sees the solar panels installed earlier this year as proof that such an installation can work right next to the airfield — overcoming concerns about glare affecting pilots.
With the benefit of tax incentives, DHL Express spent $700,000 on its solar panels, and had to secure permits and Federal Aviation Administration clearance. The company expects the solar panels can generate the equivalent of 50% of the energy needed for the facility.
“This is really the blueprint — this hub — for what we’re going to be doing across the Americas,” said Cain Moodie, DHL senior vice president for Americas region network operations.
The company hired dozens of workers for its expansion, and says it now has close to 100 employees there. The facility has air conditioning — unlike many package sorting facilities — as well as other new equipment, including electric forklifts.
Still, the Atlanta regional hub is only using a fraction of its capacity today. DHL hopes to add more flights to Atlanta from Mexico and Puerto Rico next year, and eventually from the U.K. and Hong Kong.
However, package volumes are currently “pretty flat,” Moodie said, marking a slowdown after a pandemic-driven surge in cargo volumes. Amid concerns about the possibility of a Teamsters strike against shipping giant UPS, Moodie added that “We’re not looking to gain any business” from that. “We hope there’s no strike,” he said.
Hartsfield- Jackson began developing the 130,000-square-foot Cargo Building C in 2015 as a $27.6 million construction project for the airport’s long-envisioned plan to expand air cargo. It was originally expected to be operational in 2017, but leasing out the building took years. In September 2019, Atlanta City Council approved a 20-year lease with ground handler Worldwide Flight Services, which subleased space to DHL Express.
“It sat empty for a long time, which is a shame,” Moodie said. A combination of timing and opportunity eventually led DHL to move into the facility in 2020 and establish the regional hub.
“As e-commerce built, we knew that cargo was going to be a very important business model to invest in,” said Dickens, who was a city council member on the transportation committee before he was elected mayor.
“We were just ahead of the game,” Dickens said. “We built it out, knowing we would fill it one day. ...It worked out.”
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