Swissport will acquire a majority stake in Düsseldorf Airport’s cargo handling unit.
The cargo handler said it would take a 74.9% shareholding in Flughafen Düsseldorf Cargo GmbH.
With this transaction, Swissport and Düsseldorf Airport will enter a long-term partnership to merge their existing air cargo handling businesses at the airport and to jointly develop them further.
The deal will see Düsseldorf become Swissport's second largest air cargo site in Germany with around 130 employees.
Swissport said it will continue to explore ways to accelerate global expansion in airport ground services and cargo handling through acquisitions.
"We are very pleased to enter into this long-term partnership with Düsseldorf Airport," said Warwick Brady, president and chief executive of Swissport. "It is a great example how we intend to partner with airports globally to strengthen their ground services and cargo handling offerings.
"We see that airports worldwide are interested in talking to us about different strategic options for their cargo and ground handling units. We believe Swissport is the right partner for them due to our global network and industry-leading operational capabilities."
Binding agreements were signed on March 17. The closing of the transaction is subject to the approval of the relevant antitrust authorities.
After handling a record 5.1m tons in 2021, 4.8m metric tons of cargo passed through Swissport’s more than 100 air cargo centres in 2022, including 352,700 tons in Germany.
Swissport has also recently secured a major contract with Chilean low-cost carrier SKY Airline to provide airport ground services and cargo handling at all 15 airports the carrier serves in the country.
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