Hamilton Airport officials see nothing but yellow sunshine with DHL's $100-million expansion

Hamilton International Airport has become Canada's largest overnight cargo express delivery airport and fourth largest cargo airport with the help of DHL's sunshine-bright, yellow building.

But the original DHL building has expanded in service, size and colour after officials held a long-awaited grand opening Sept. 29 to show off the $100-million Hamilton Gateway facility that is four times the size of the previous structure.

It's DHL's largest volume facility in all of Canada," said Cole Horncastle, director of Hamilton International Airport's finances and operations, during the ceremony held outdoors on a large patio. It's hard to miss it. It's truly a bright spot for the airport."

Plans for DHL's new Hamilton Gateway facility began four years ago, and the company broke ground in 2019, said Darryl Wettlaufer, vice-president of operations for DHL Express Canada. He said the 238,000-square-foot facility will be the company's first fully automatic hub in Canada and one of only four facilities in North America.

Other DHL Express gateways in Canada are located in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal and Mirabel.

DHL had employed 225 people during its peak season, but the expansion will provide an extra 150 jobs to the area.

This project represents a real belief that DHL has in Hamilton," said Wettlaufer.

Currently, said Gagan Bargotra, senior manager at DHL Express, the facility ships 25,000 packages per day, with a high of 35,000 packages daily on Mondays. When the facility starts its hub operations Oct. 18, it is projected to ship 50,000 to 55,000 packages per day.

Bargotra said in the old facility, sorting packages took about 12 hours. In the new, expanded automatic-dominated facility, the same number of packages can be sorted within five hours. The facility has the capacity now to process 28,000 packages per hour with its 1.75 kilometres of conveyor belts.

That's how much of a difference this building makes for our customers," he said.

But Bargotra said because of the increasing demand for overnight shipping, especially by e-commerce, the company's 20-year plan for expansion has been accelerated by at least half.

Right now, we are under-utilizing this facility," said Bargotra. We have a lot more capacity."

He said plans are already underway within the massive building to increase the hub area. He said proposals are to expand it in 2022, because this was one of the smoothest (relocation) transitions of any building in the DHL network."

Bargotra said DHL can double the capacity within a year, possibly hitting 200,000 packages.

Every conveyor belt can be doubled up," he said.

Since 2019, DHL Express has grown in shipments per day within Canada by about 40 per cent. The company has seen holiday season-like" shipping volumes throughout North and South America. Every month, 60 per cent of the total Canadian shipments are cleared at Hamilton International Airport.

DHL Express Hamilton International Gateway has two daily flights linking Canada with its global hub at Cincinnati.

The Hamilton airport has seen accelerated growth from its cargo traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic with such shipping companies as Cargojet, UPS, Amazon, Canada Post, Purolator and DHL responding to a jump in e-commerce and the movement in medical supplies, such as vaccines and personal protective equipment. There have been about 10 per cent more landings at the airport in 2020 compared to 2019, with a 6.5-per-cent increase in cargo-related revenue as of June 30, 2020.

We have become a major, major hub, not only in Ontario but across the country," said Mayor Fred Eisenberger. We are very grateful for the investment and employment opportunities."