MUMBAI: Global air logistics major FedEx is investing over Rs 2,500 crore to develop an exclusive, fully-automated air cargo hub at the Navi Mumbai international airport, which was commissioned late December with patchy services.
The proposed cargo hub, for which groundbreaking was done Wednesday, will be designed as a regional consolidation and redistribution hub and developed in partnership with Adani Airport Holdings, over the next two years.
The proposed facility, to be developed as a dedicated cargo hub for FedEx, will come up within the airport premises under a long-term investment plan exceeding $250 million. Spread across 3 lakh sqft, the hub is designed as a regional consolidation and redistribution centre that will connect India with Southeast Asia, West Asia, Europe and the US, FedEx Corporation president and chief executive Raj Subramanian, who is an IIT-Bombay alumnus, said here Wednesday.
Addressing the event, state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the cargo hub will complement the passenger operations at the airport and reinforce the state’s position as a logistics and trade gateway
Jeet Adani, director of Adani Airport Holdings, said the project reflected the new airport’s long-term vision of building integrated infrastructure that strengthens the country’s trade competitiveness.
The cargo hub will leverage the airport’s multimodal connectivity to strengthen Western India’s international trade corridor. Once operational, it is expected to create over 6,000 direct and indirect jobs across logistics, warehousing, transportation and allied services.
Subramanian said the facility would integrate the company’s global network with the country’s fastest-growing trade corridor. "Establishing this hub at the new airport allows us to integrate global network strength with the country’s fastest-growing trade corridor, providing greater certainty, speed and efficiency to our customers," he said.
The cargo infrastructure at the new airport, which even after two months of commercial operations has very poor mobile connectivity (because of the non-agreement on the commercial side of the network installations) and also very haphazardly managed tax services, is planned to begin with an initial handling capacity of around 0.5 million tonne annually, scaling up in phases to around 3.2 million tonnes in its final development stage. The calibrated expansion aligns with the airport’s strategy of positioning the Mumbai Metropolitan Region as a major air freight and logistics gateway.
Building on nearly three decades of operations in the country, the new hub expands FedEx’s dedicated presence while reinforcing the role of the new airport as an integrated aviation and multimodal trade platform in global supply chains.
FedEx said its new facility advances capacity in the country’ largest international trade corridor, strengthening its role as an integrated logistics and trade gateway for western India.
Equipped with advanced automated sorting systems, dimensional scanning, high-speed screening technology and dedicated aircraft parking bays, the facility will enable simultaneous processing of inbound and outbound shipments and enhance routing flexibility and transit time predictability, particularly for high-value and time-sensitive sectors such as electronics, engineering goods, pharmaceuticals, and perishables.