FedEx Commits $150 Million to Build Automated Air Cargo Hub at Delhi Airport

FedEx will spend $150 million to build and equip a dedicated air freight terminal at Delhi international airport, expanding its international cargo processing capacity across northern India. The planned 230,000-square-foot facility will lift the carrier’s sorting rate at the airport from 600 packages an hour to 5,000.

The investment will consolidate FedEx’s scattered pickup and delivery operations around the airport into a single base. It includes high-speed automated conveyor lines and computer vision scanners powered by artificial intelligence to route international parcels through customs and sorting lanes.

Consolidation at GMR Cargo Campus

Airport operator GMR Airports Ltd is developing the broader cargo zone to house airlines, freight forwarders, and logistics providers. Phase 1 will cover roughly one million square feet, with construction starting shortly. A planned second phase could add between 500,000 and one million square feet of space.

FedEx is leasing the warehouse structure from GMR and financing all internal sorting systems, scanning hardware, and IT infrastructure. The site design allows for modular physical expansion as freight volumes increase.

“India is a critical market in our global network, with North and East India playing an important role in the country’s growing trade and economic opportunity,” said Kami Viswanathan, president of FedEx Middle East, Indian Subcontinent and Africa. Viswanathan noted that the expanded presence aims to give regional exporters faster links to overseas buyers as annual Indian merchandise trade exceeds $1.2 trillion.

Expanding the Indian Triangle

The Delhi project is the third major air cargo site FedEx has funded in India over the past nine months. In February, the Memphis-based logistics group committed $250 million for an on-airport freight facility at Navi Mumbai International Airport, an Adani Group project targeting 500,000 metric tons of cargo capacity in its initial phase. FedEx will run that site alongside its existing operations at Mumbai’s legacy airport.

Before that, in December, the company opened a 60,000-square-foot hub at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, processing up to 4,000 packages an hour across pharmaceutical, industrial, and technology export lines.

Connecting Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru gives FedEx dedicated airport-side sorting hubs across India’s three largest manufacturing and technology corridors. Construction on the Delhi cargo park begins in the coming weeks, with GMR preparing the phase one site for tenant fit-outs.