Worldwide Flight Services (WFS), a SATS company, has opened a 25,400-square-meter cargo terminal at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport, consolidating its local operations into a single facility in the airport's Cargoport zone. The building, designated Aéroport de Lyon DC1, sits directly connected to the runways and serves WFS's 380 customers in the Lyon area.

The terminal ranks as WFS's second-largest operation in France after Paris Charles de Gaulle. Aéroports de Lyon, Prologis and the em2c Group developed the facility jointly with WFS.

The consolidation matters for capacity in a specific segment: temperature-sensitive freight. The terminal carries 4,400 square meters of temperature-controlled storage for pharmaceuticals, perishables and other sensitive cargo. That figure anchors the facility's role in supporting the region's healthcare, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries — sectors where cold-chain integrity, not sheer volume, drives handling revenue.

The building's throughput design reflects the same priority. It provides 36 loading docks for imports and exports, five of them dedicated to air freight pallet transfers. WFS designed the internal layout to shorten cargo flows between landside access points, warehouse handling areas and airside operations, a configuration that reduces dwell time for high-value shipments.

Laurent Bernard, vice president of WFS France, called the new terminal another milestone for the company, which began operating in Lyon in 1971.

The facility supports more than 300 direct and indirect jobs. It targets a BREEAM Very Good sustainability rating, and its roof is structurally prepared for a future solar installation — a design choice that leaves room for energy-cost reductions without a second capital project.

The Lyon opening extends the combined SATS and WFS network, which now operates more than 215 stations across 27 countries. For SATS, which acquired WFS to build an integrated air cargo and food solutions platform, the investment in temperature-controlled capacity at a secondary French gateway signals where the group expects growth: specialized freight tied to regional industrial clusters rather than general cargo volume.

WFS has not disclosed the investment value of the terminal or specific capacity targets for pharmaceutical throughput. The company says the facility's design, cold-chain infrastructure and cargo-flow organization will strengthen its capacity and operational efficiency for sensitive and high-value shipments.

The BREEAM rating remains a target rather than a certification achieved, and the solar installation exists only as roof-ready structural provision. Both will define the facility's longer-term operating profile as WFS ramps up operations from the consolidated site.