UPS completes robust enhancements in Asia
UPS has completed a “robust series of air lane enhancements” to improve connectivity throughout Asia. The enhancements come off the back of the opening of UPS’s hub in Shenzhen, China, last May.
UPS has completed improvements to more than 100 intra-Asia lane pairs since the hub opened, resulting in a “dramatically improved service for customers throughout Asia”.
The operator can now offer faster transit times on key lanes between India and the rest of Asia and between South Korea and other Asian destinations.
Also launching next month will be a direct weekly flight from Guam to Hong Kong, which in turn connects that US territory to the rest of the world, the company confirmed.
Derek Woodward, president of UPS’s Asia Pacific Region: “The Shenzhen Asia Pacific hub has enabled us to strengthen our entire intra-Asia network.
“Since we relocated our intra-Asia hub to Shenzhen, we have operated more than 5,000 flights to and from this hub. We also have added significant capacity and service improvements to meet the growing needs of businesses to move intra-Asia express and freight volume. And we’re not done yet.”
Since operations at the Shenzhen got underway, multiple service enhancements have been made, including: improved time-in-transit and later cut-off times from Beijing to cities like Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei, Tokyo & Osaka; a reduced time-in-transit from Indian cities to destinations like Australia, China, Hong Kong, Korea; and later cut-off times from Seoul.
Woodward added: “The biggest winners here are our customers. Their goods either arrive earlier or they can enjoy later pick-up times to accommodate last-minute orders.
“The new Guam flight will offer service to the express package, military and forwarder communities and provide capacity for the burgeoning Asia export market. Additionally, the recently announced expansion of the US Marine base on Guam is increasing requests for UPS services there.”
UPS will initiate the Guam service using its largest aircraft, the B747-400 freighter, which offers customers 258,000 pounds of payload capacity and is well suited for carrying both small packages and heavy freight required by Guam’s shipping and logistics community, UPS said.
UPS has highlighted meteoric growth in the region, as the company pursues “aggressive expansion in that part of the world”. This has led to the operator to add new direct flights between Hong Kong and its European hub in Cologne, Germany.
Located at the Shenzhen Baoan International Airport, the $180m hub has allowed the operator to reduce shipment time-in-transit for customers by a day.
A spokesperson for UPS said: “The decision to move the intra-Asia hub to Shenzhen was prompted by developing trade flows that now see more than 75% of intra-Asia business originating from the North Asian region.”
The 89,000 square metre hub currently processes up to 18,000 pieces per hour but can be expanded to a capacity of 36,000 pieces per hour. It employs about 400 people.
Away from Shenzhen, UPS opened its new International Air Hub at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai in 2009. It connects China to the UPS global air network including US and European destinations.
