Record peak season for Hermes

Hermes has experienced its busiest peak season to date, handling more than 36m parcels between Black Friday and the New Year. This represented a year-on-year rise of 15.7% on 2015 volumes, for the period 27th November and 2nd January.

Hermes said that it also had the busiest day in its history when the company processed more than 1.56m parcels on Friday 2nd December.

In total, Hermes handled more than a million parcels in a night on 25 separate occasions, which exceeded the existing record of 22 nights, set a year earlier.

And here is an arresting image: Hermes calculated that if every parcel handled during the peak season was laid out in a row, the line would stretch from London to Melbourne.

The company said that implemented a peak investment programme that included the introduction of two temporary hubs in Listerhills and Tamworth, as well as expanding its network of self-employed couriers to 15,000. In addition, Hermes also added 400 trailers to its fleet as well as 242 additional depot vehicles.

Martijn de Lange, COO at Hermes, commented: “Each year we start planning for the busy peak season a little earlier than the year before. Our success is the result of excellent working relationships with our clients, constant investment in our network, and most importantly, down to the hard work of our teams. This year we will build on this success by further strengthening our infrastructure, which includes the opening of our 270,000 sq ft Midlands Super Hub in Rugby, as well as prioritising innovation in order to boost our portfolio of services and solutions.”