Global logistics provider DHL Supply Chain is well placed to serve new and existing airline customers when the second Sydney airport becomes operational given its growing base in western Sydney, a senior executive says.
The company opened a new $120 million, 90,000 square metre “supply chain campus” at Horsley Park in western Sydney on February 11, catering to retail, consumer, healthcare and technology customers.
DHL Supply Chain currently transported so-called above-the-wing products such as meals, galley carts and other supplies for airline clients.
Although most of its airline work comes out of a warehouse in Matraville close to Kingsford Smith Airport, DHL Supply Chain Australia managing director Saul Resnick said the Horsley Park site was an ideal base from which to serve airlines operating out of the proposed second Sydney airport.
“When the airport hopefully is opened, whenever it happens, we will be really well-positioned from a labour point of view, from a facility and infrastructure point of view, resourcing perspective as well as with an experienced skill base, having worked with airlines like Qantas and British Airways globally to be able to serve that market efficiently and effectively,” Resnick said in an interview.
The federal government is currently undertaking an environmental assessment of the proposed site for the second Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek.
Construction was earmarked to start in 2016, with the airport to be operational by the mid-2020s initially with one runway about 4,000 metres in length along a north-east/south-west orientation.
The airport would have no curfew.
The government was also currently in a formal nine-month consultation phase with the owners of Sydney Airport, who have the right of first refusal to build and operate any new airport within 100 kilometres of the existing facility at Mascot.
Resnick said the company hoped to expand beyond the new campus in Horsley Park with more investment in the area. DHL Supply Chain currently had about 20 facilities within a 10-kilometre radius in western Sydney, he said.
