EL MARQUÉS, QRO .- DHL Express México inaugurated its air hub at Querétaro International Airport (AIQ), which required an investment of more than 120 million dollars, infrastructure that is positioned as the most advanced and with the greatest capacity in Latin America.
With this investment, the facility now has more than 30,000 square meters of space , 44 automated freight lines, and a handling capacity of 41,000 shipments per hour.
“This hub connects 100,000 packages every night and can reach 250,000. This is very important to us because it represents the future of DHL Express Mexico. The present and the future are built by working today,” said Antonio Arranz, CEO of the company.
At a press conference, Arranz announced that they will also seek to convert this infrastructure into a domestic land hub, which will be the second phase of this project.
Arturo Fonseca, the company’s Vice President of Operations, mentioned that these facilities are fully automated, which allows them to increase their efficiency.
“We have the capacity for large packages, standard-sized boxes, and the flyer component, which allows us to be very efficient with smaller items. Fifty percent of the volume we handle comes from Mexico City and is distributed throughout the country. We also have a lot of volume from Tijuana, where the planes are generally full, and also in the southeast, especially Cancún and Mérida. We have the advantage that the 737 planes that serve these regions are full on both flights,” he indicated.
Without mentioning a date, he said they will wait for the results of the peak season, which begins with Buen Fin and ends with Three Kings’ Day, to determine their projections for the coming years.
He explained that this hub handles cargo from various segments, including automotive, e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, and others.
Erika Quezada, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for DHL Express Mexico, noted that Querétaro has been a key hub for the company since 2011 , which is why it underwent its first expansion of its facilities in 2014, before moving to this new hub.
“This facility will give us life for many years to come and the capacity our clients are waiting for to continue managing our businesses,” he said.
He explained that this infrastructure is the company’s largest capacity , becoming the “heart” for the coming years. Furthermore, with this facility, they will be able to process 41,000 packages per hour and connect 98% of them to different destinations next day.
Currently, this facility serves 12 daily domestic flights (arrivals and departures) to Mérida, Cancún, Monterrey, Ciudad Juárez, Mazatlán, Cabo San Lucas, Torreón, Hermosillo, Chihuahua, Villahermosa, Culiacán, and Tijuana, with a total of 33 interconnected cities. Additionally, there are daily flights to Cincinnati, United States.
“This isn’t just an air hub, but a ground hub, because it operates from 11 p.m. until the early morning, and during those hours we work our magic. It connects to all the domestic ground networks that extend to all the states of the Republic. And it also lands a plane coming from the United States,” Quezada added.
Regarding job creation, they specified that there were approximately 600 indirect jobs, while there were 280 direct jobs.
Luis Felipe Rivas, CEO of TL Kapital, said the hub is LEED-certified, and its construction includes 610 solar panels, a rainwater harvesting system, regional materials, and recyclable content, among other elements. This reflects the commitment of all companies to the environment and aligns with the airport’s vision of reducing carbon emissions.
Mauricio Kuri González, governor of Querétaro, was in charge of the symbolic lighting of the machining center, the ceremony that officially inaugurated the facilities.
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