SATS-owned Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) has opened a 25,400 sq m cargo terminal at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport, consolidating its Lyon operations into a single facility and creating the company's second-largest operation in France after Paris Charles de Gaulle.

The Aéroport de Lyon DC1 building sits in the airport's Cargoport zone and connects directly to the runways. WFS has handled cargo at Lyon since 1971, and the new site now serves all 380 of the company's customers in the region.

The terminal's specification is built around temperature-sensitive and high-value freight. It contains 4,400 sq m of cold rooms for specialised and sensitive cargo, capacity suited to perishables storage, and 36 door docks handling imports and exports — five of them dedicated to airfreight pallet transfers. The layout is designed to optimise flows between landside access points, handling areas and airside operations.

That configuration targets the healthcare, pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, which are heavily concentrated in the Lyon region. Laurent Bernard, vice-president of WFS France, said the facility "represents a new milestone for WFS in Lyon, where we first commenced operations in 1971."

"Its design, temperature-controlled areas, and organisation of cargo flows enable us to strengthen our capacity and operational efficiency to handle sensitive and high value goods for our airline and freight forwarder customers," Bernard said.

He added: "Given Lyon's strategically important location, industrial base, and high-value economic sectors, this new generation of logistics infrastructure reinforces Lyon's position in national and European logistics flows and will strengthen the economic attractiveness of the region."

The project brought together four parties: airport operator Aéroports de Lyon, WFS, logistics real estate developer Prologis and the em2c Group, which handled design, build and technology oversight as developer and contractor.

Prologis framed the project as a shift in how it deploys capital. Vincent Sadé, vice president, head of capital deployment France at Prologis, said: "Aéroport de Lyon DC1 illustrates how our business is evolving: beyond the building itself, we design infrastructure that is directly integrated into our customers' operations."

"Our role was to align the specific constraints of the airport environment, real estate requirements and WFS's operational needs to create a tailored, high-performing solution built to last," Sadé said.

Environmental performance was specified at the design stage. The building targets a 'Very Good' BREEAM rating, and its roof is solar-ready, engineered to accommodate a future photovoltaic installation.

Yvan Patet, president of the em2c Group, said the project "stems from a shared vision among regional and international partners driven by a desire to strengthen the region by incorporating environmental performance from the construction phase onwards. This facility provides a solution tailored to the specific requirements of air freight."

For the airport operator, the terminal extends the freight estate at a site it ranks as France's second-largest air cargo hub. Cedric Fechter, chairman of the management board of Aéroports de Lyon, said: "The Aéroport de Lyon DC1 facility marks the continued expansion of Cargoport, the freight zone at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport and France's second largest air cargo hub. The result of close collaboration between Prologis, the em2c Group, WFS and Aeroports de Lyon, this project epitomises regional supply chain and significantly strengthens the competitiveness of the region."

With 380 customers consolidated onto one airside-connected site and pharmaceutical-grade cold-chain capacity in place, WFS has positioned Lyon to capture growth in high-value, temperature-sensitive freight flowing through France's second-largest cargo airport.