PensionDanmark and Billund Airport have entered into a long-term strategic collaboration to build Airport City. “Unique hangers, office domiciles, and logistics and warehousing facilities on the airport’s 700-hectare site will support doubling of air freight and create up to 9,000 new jobs by attracting international companies from all over Europe,”
Billund Airport in Denmark and Danish pension company PensionDanmark are collaborating to more than double airfreight at the airport from 77,000 tonnes of goods per year to 160,000 tonnes per year in 2040.
The long-term strategic collaboration to create “Airport City” aims to construct infrastructures such as hangars and logistics and storage facilities on the airport’s 700-hectare site. The deal is worth billions of kroner, according to Billund Airport.
“With the development of Airport City, Billund Airport can become one of Northern Europe’s most attractive hubs for air freight,” said Jan Hessellund, chief executive officer of Billund Airport. “We expect to more than double the volumes in airfreight, so the collaboration with PensionDanmark is of course a historic milestone for the airport.
“We are already well into the dialogue with several prominent logistics companies that have expressed a clear interest in taking advantage of the opportunities in Airport City. Most recently, Maersk Air Cargo has announced the choice of Billund Airport as their European air freight hub.”
With Airport City, Billund will have global accessibility that will have significant positive effects on growth and employment in both tourism and other business areas – not just in Billund – but in Denmark as a whole,” says Torben Möger Pedersen, CEO, PensionDanmark. “Therefore, we see great prospects in a long-term strategic partnership with Billund Airport where PensionDanmark can also offer the necessary experience with innovative and sustainable concepts that can on a large scale contribute to reducing construction’s impact on the climate through, among other things, optimising resource use and construction sustainability.”
“The global upturn on the stock markets in 2021 has grown the savings of PensionDanmark’s 790,000 members. Denmark’s largest labour market pension fund delivered a total return of DKK 36.4 billion ($5.5 billion) to the members with returns of between 10 and 16 percent for all age pools.”
“CCB is home to General Sales Agents (GSAs), 11 forwarding agents, air cargo departments of Air France/KLM and SAS, and express parcel company TNT. The airport and the other companies that are there employ more than 450 employees in the air cargo centre.” CCB has service halls totalling about 18,000 m2, equipped to handle transfers between lorries and aircraft, break down and build flight palettes/containers and handle both cold and warm temperature-sensitive goods.
PensionDanmark and Billund Airport expect to establish a joint company at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023 that will be responsible for the development of Airport City by 2040.
The agreement between PensionDanmark and Billund Airport initially involves the development of warehousing and cargo, but may in the long term also include offices, hotels, and other airport operations.
