€10m Amazon Warehouse Opens at Brescia-Montichiari Airport

A €10 million, 4,300 sq m cargo warehouse has entered service at Gabriele d'Annunzio Airport in Brescia-Montichiari, built chiefly to handle Amazon's parcel operation, which has run four daily flights six days a week from the Lombardy gateway since September.

The steel-frame building covers ground equivalent to 16 tennis courts — an area that could in theory hold two Boeing 737-800s. Its pitched roof encloses roughly 67,000 cubic metres, comparable to 1,500 containers of 40 cubic metres each. According to the airport, the facility supports air operations and the sorting of thousands of parcels a day, linking Montichiari to Amazon's European air logistics hubs.

How the new facility fits the airport's cargo build-out

The warehouse adds to space already serving Poste Italiane — for which Montichiari is the main operational hub — DHL and non-European cargo flights. Together those operations cover 20,000 sq m at the northern Italian airport.

The €10 million investment sits on top of €20 million spent on infrastructure and operational equipment since 2015, while the airport waited for its Master Plan approval process to conclude. The Master Plan, approved last year, provides for total investment of €100 million.

For the Amazon operation specifically, the airport has installed X-ray screening machines, castor decks — platforms with omnidirectional wheels for moving loads — cargo loaders, and new truck loading and unloading bays.

Who opened it, and what they said

The ribbon-cutting drew SAVE Group President Enrico Marchi, senior management of SAVE and Catullo, ENAC Extraordinary Commissioner Carlo Mearelli, Lombardy councillors Guido Guidesi (Economic Development) and Debora Massari (Tourism, Territorial Marketing and Fashion), and Montichiari Mayor Marco Togni.

Marchi framed the opening as part of a deliberate sequence. "Brescia Airport is progressively realising its potential as a cargo-specialised airport within the group of airports managed by our Group," he said. "Once again it meant we were ready to welcome a new international player such as Amazon. We will continue with this approach, delivering what is set out in the Master Plan approved last year, so that Montichiari grows in its role as a reference point for freight transport in Italy and in Europe."

Mearelli placed the project in national policy context: "The project is part of ENAC's wider effort to strengthen and modernise the national cargo sector, focusing on infrastructure development, automation and digitalisation." He added that the effort aligns with the new National Airports Plan, "which identifies strengthening the cargo supply chain as a priority action to meet growing demand and support the country's competitiveness in international markets."

Togni, who has watched the site's slow maturation since the airport opened in March 1999, noted the long road to certainty: "A clear strategy was needed, and it had to work through a complex process: first the award of the concession, then a development plan, and finally the necessary authorisations. It seems that all the pieces have finally fallen into place." With the new warehouse and the e-commerce flights, he said, "a growth outlook that appears solid and lasting is finally taking shape."

Can Montichiari pull freight off Northern European trucks?

Montichiari sits at the centre of an industrial area generating more than 50 percent of Italy's exports, served by five motorways including the new 'BreBeMi'. The airport argues these features position it to capture domestic air cargo flows still trucked to airports in Northern Europe, supported by round-the-clock operations, a customs service working every day of the week, and equipment allowing tailor-made customer solutions.

Traffic volumes are growing in step. The airport expects a significant year-on-year increase in tonnes of cargo handled by the end of 2026, and around 200 direct and indirect workers have been added since September — a hiring pace of roughly 200 people in a few months to match the Amazon ramp-up.

With the Master Plan's €100 million programme now underway and e-commerce volumes anchoring daily departures, Montichiari's next test is converting its catchment's export weight into sustained freighter capacity rather than trucked flows to rival hubs.