DHL completes efforts to step up delivery standards across EMEA region

DHL Express is bulking up its delivery services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa as it withdraws from domestic operations in the United States.

DHL Express is bulking up its delivery services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa as it withdraws from domestic operations in the United States.

DHL has announced that it has completed a two-year effort to step up delivery standards across Europe, the Middle East and Africa that has improved transit times on some 27,000 trade lanes, including the addition of overnight delivery to almost 1,300 lanes.

Those included new overnight service from all major European cities to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The effort has been helped by what DHL calls improved connectivity through its new hub in Leipzig, Germany, a former East Germany business centre DHL now uses as a base and the anchor of a growing capacity sharing agreement with Lufthansa.

The improved delivery standards come as DHL is cutting back its presence in the world’s largest express market. Parcel industry competitors looking to take on DHL customers in the United States also are making new bids to go after the company’s international customers and DHL Express CEO John Mullen said last week some shippers dropping DHL in the U.S. have moved away from the carrier in other parts of the world.