Effective immediately, Felix Toepsch is taking over as head of Fraport’s Cargo Development Team. He follows Denis de Faria Duarte, who assumed this role on 01JAN25. The 32-year-old will thus be primarily responsible for the further development of Frankfurt Airport’s cargo business, which includes large infrastructure projects. He will continue to lead the Air Cargo Community Frankfurt as an interim solution.
“With Felix Toepsch, we are gaining an experienced colleague for this important role, who has known Frankfurt as an air cargo hub for many years and has a broad network within the cargo community,” states Dietmar Focke, Chief Operating Officer of Fraport AG. “He will leverage his experience in business development, digitalization, and process optimization to further develop the hub and capitalize on growth opportunities in the cargo business.” Fraport is Europe’s leading cargo hub by volumes but has lately been surpassed by Istanbul’s new airport located on the shores of the Black Sea.
Toepsch, who holds a degree in economics, has been with Fraport AG since 2013. In various roles, he has focused on business and process development as well as innovation projects, among other things. He organized the Air Cargo Conference (ACCF) held last week and attended by roughly 400 participants. CargoForwarder Global covered the trade show in detail.
Still undecided who succeeds Toepsch as helm of the ACCF
Toepsch became CEO of the Air Cargo Community Frankfurt e.V. in JAN23 and managed to significantly increase the association’s membership. He told CFG that he will continue to lead the ACCF in the interim until a new CEO is appointed. Currently, more than 115 companies are members of the club, and the number is constantly increasing. As ACCF CEO, he has worked closely with companies and institutions across the entire air cargo supply chain and represented the interests of the 115+ companies in the Air Cargo Community Frankfurt. In doing so, he championed the further development of Frankfurt as a leading European air cargo hub. Among other things, he drove the growth of the Cargo Community and helped implement process and standardization measures for air cargo at the location, such as the introduction of a shared slot booking system for trucks.
Beyond Fraport and the Air Cargo Community, Toepsch is also active in national and European association affairs.
Fraport’s Cargo Development team focuses on the further development and implementation of the Cargo Master Plan for the digitization and optimization of cargo processes, infrastructure development, and site marketing, in collaboration with partners at Rhine-Main. This includes a massive expansion of the cargo infrastructure. The airport operator’s long-term goal is to increase the annual air cargo volume by about 50%, to over three million metric tons and to secure Frankfurt’s position as a leading European cargo hub.
Part of the plan is the construction of a new multi-tenant logistics facility in the Cargo CityNorth area, as well as the development of 43,000 m² of additional air cargo space with direct access to the airport apron and another 20,000 m² for ground handling processes.
