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Birmingham airport breaks ground on Kuehne+Nagel cargo facility

Fits trend of smaller airports becoming morepopular as freighter destinations

Eric Kulisch
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Atlas Air is one of two cargo airlines under contract with Kuehne+Nagel to fly Boeing 747 jets to Birmingham, Alabama. The 747-8 pictured here is only a few months old. It was the second to last ever produced by Boeing, which shut down the assembly line in January. (Photo: K+N)

Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) in Alabama has begun construction of its first dedicated terminal for general cargo, part of a new focus on attracting cargo business that already includes new chartered freighter flights from Germany.

The Birmingham Airport Authority last week broke ground on the $27 million facility, which will serve as the Southeast air hub for Kuehne+Nagel (CXE: KNIN). The global logistics powerhouse in April launched twice weekly flights from Stuttgart, Germany, to support demand from companies in the automotive, aerospace and pharmaceutical industries, including Mercedes-Benz. It is temporarily operating out of an existing hangar under a temporary lease agreement with another airport tenant. 

Atlas Air and Cargolux are flying Boeing 747 cargo jets, which return via Chicago O’Hare airport, on Kuehne+Nagel’s behalf. Alliance Ground International is providing the ramp services and cargo processing.

K+N will move into the new cargo facility once it is completed next spring, the airport authority said in a news release Wednesday marking the groundbreaking. The building has 48,500 square feet of warehouse space plus administrative offices, 17 dock doors for trucks and five airside bays. 


The new cargo operation puts BHM on the map as a Southeastern gateway, alongside Huntsville airport in northern Alabama and Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina. Huntsville airport pioneered the concept in the United States of second-tier airports becoming destinations for scheduled all-cargo airlines by offering faster cargo turnarounds at a much lower cost than at crowded metropolitan airports.

An artists rendering of the cargo facility to be leased to Kuehne+Nagel at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. (Photo: BMH Airport Authority)

K+N rival DSV recently established its own private air hub at lesser-known Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona to cater to semiconductor and electric battery manufacturers. Airports in the Los Angeles area require an additional truck leg and nearby Phoenix Sky Harbor airport has a hands-off approach to cargo.

Birmingham, about 150 miles west of Atlanta, is centrally located in the Southeast’s rapidly growing manufacturing belt. Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda and Toyota have assembly plants in Alabama, all supported by a local supplier base. Airbus manufactures aircraft in Mobile, Alabama.

The airport authority is funding the new air cargo facility, which will be leased to K+N for an initial period of six years. Officials originally planned to build an air logistics center this year on a speculative basis because of confidence in market demand, but adjusted the final design after being approached by K+N to establish a gateway at BHM, said spokeswoman Kim Hunt.


FedEx Express, UPS and their feeder airlines move shipments through BHM through a small facility on the far end of the airport. 

(Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly transposed letters in Birmingham’s airport code.)

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Eric Kulisch

Eric is the Supply Chain and Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves. An award-winning business journalist with extensive experience covering the logistics sector, Eric spent nearly two years as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Automotive News, where he focused on regulatory and policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles, mobility, fuel economy and safety. He has won two regional Gold Medals and a Silver Medal from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for government and trade coverage, and news analysis. He was voted best for feature writing and commentary in the Trade/Newsletter category by the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He won Environmental Journalist of the Year from the Seahorse Freight Association in 2014 and was the group's 2013 Supply Chain Journalist of the Year. In December 2022, Eric was voted runner up for Air Cargo Journalist by the Seahorse Freight Association. As associate editor at American Shipper Magazine for more than a decade, he wrote about trade, freight transportation and supply chains. He has appeared on Marketplace, ABC News and National Public Radio to talk about logistics issues in the news. Eric is based in Vancouver, Washington. He can be reached for comments and tips at [email protected]