DHL set to land airport base in Hong Kong
DHL Worldwide Express, the international courier company, is believed to be days away from signing a deal with the Airport Authority for the development of an express terminal at Chek Lap Kok.
The agreement will pave the way for DHL and Cathay Pacific Airways to announce later a joint airfreight initiative under which Air Hong Kong will operate cargo flights within Asia on behalf of DHL.
Cathay has already leased its first Airbus A300B4 freighter from US leasing specialist Express.Net Airlines that will be used by Air Hong Kong.
The lease agreement started at the end of June and lasts for 15
months.
Cathay is seeking to acquire up to another 10 A300s, which can carry about 50 tonnes of cargo each, that will be used by Air Hong Kong to operate the DHL freighter flights.
But the DHL-Cathay alliance is largely conditional on the express operator being awarded the concession to develop the cargo centre at Chek Lap Kok.
A DHL spokeswoman told The Standard yesterday that an agreement
would be signed “very soon”.
“We are in negotiation with the relevant parties so we cannot comment further. An announcement will be made very shortly,” she said.
DHL was the only airfreight company to submit a tender for the franchise when the authority issued bid documents to just four operators in December.
Details of the length of the franchise, lease payments and other
issues are in the final stages of negotiation.
The authority hopes the complex can open in early 2004.
DHL would not comment on how the new express centre would link
with the rest of its regional network such as its cargo complex at Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek international airport. But in a visit to Taipei this month, DHL Asia-Pacific chief operating officer John Mullen said Taiwan would play “a pivotal role in our greater China strategy”.
He added: “Taiwan is a significant market and business for us on its own. It’s our fifth or sixth largest market in the Asia-Pacific region and remains important to us as a stand-alone market.”
About 40 per cent of DHL’s revenues in the Asia-Pacific region
come from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and South Korea.
The firm has recently reached an interline agreement with China Eastern and China Southern in which the two mainland airlines will carry express freight to destinations in the central and northern area of China.
One source said DHL would use its Air Hong Kong cargo flights to transport high-value or time-sensitive consignments from other Asian centres such as Taipei and Kaohsiung to Hong Kong. DHL would then use China Eastern and China Southern to handle the shipments earmarked for mainland destinations.
Packages destined for other Asian cities would be flown out on Air Hong Kong, while those for outside Asia would be carried in the holds of commercial passenger aircraft.
