USPS in European push with Lynx parcels link
The arrival of USPS, with its bald eagle logo, looks set to further shake up the turbulent European parcels market. Aimed initially at westbound transatlantic priority mail and parcels to 136m US delivery addresses, the ambition is to expand the service range and have a 5% market share within three years. David Burtenshaw, chief executive of Lynx Express, said: ‘The US Postal Service has received very little exposure in Europe until now, and there is much catching up to be done. ‘We expect to begin trials on the service with existing customers over the next few months, and will be launching a full-blown retail proposition in the autumn.’ Although the government-owned USPS has many worldwide agreements restricted to mail, so far only a handful have related to parcels, in Latin America and the Far East. The Lynx deal, aimed at the lucrative European market, is by far the largest to include parcels under 32kg, the traditional weight break for express consignments that can be carried by hand. Priority mail is a one to two day delivery product in the US domestic market. Lynx will connect with the US delivery network by putting traffic in the bellyholds of transatlantic passenger jets to the US or by co-loading on existing freighters out of Europe. In mainland Europe, Lynx is represented through alliance agreements with other carriers, but it has plans to strengthen its direct presence in France and Germany. And, as with the link-up announced two weeks ago by US parcel giant FedEx and Business Post in the UK, the USPS-Lynx deal is a venture between unequal partners. USPS has annual revenues of Dollars 64.5bn, with 787,000 staff delivering 208bn items of mail and parcels last year. Lynx, a management buyout from the former NFC, has annual revenues of Pounds 160m (Pounds 230m) and delivered 40m packages in 2000. It is being made clear that the initial focus on priority mail will not stop other products being added in the autumn. USPS and Lynx will co-ordinate their data links for track and trace, with consignments being bar-coded and scanned on pick-up in delivery. On arrival in the US, the packages will be rescanned and put into the USPS delivery system. Lynx says that it has been chosen to spearhead the USPS drive in Europe. The UK express operator, which acquired the Red Star parcels arm of British Rail three years ago, says its role as an independent will help USPS reach ‘a wide audience of potential users’. USPS, tainted with a poor delivery service for a number of years, has recently enacted a number of groundbreaking agreements in the US with former private sector With its ‘last mile’ delivery strengths to American households, it hopes to capture a large slice of the internet-fuelled boom for home delivery.
Copyright 2001 Lloyds List.
Source: World Reporter (Trade Mark) – FT McCarthy.LLOYDS LIST, 16th May
2001
