Author: Archive

UPS faces protective challenges with India

Posted by | Jul 22, 2007 | |

India’s postal service wants to rein in international express couriers doing business in India, in what many here see as a backward step in the liberalization of the country’s economy.
A recent proposal to be reviewed by Parliament gives the postal service exclusive rights for express delivery of letters weighing up to 300 grams within the country, virtually shielding the government agency from competition.
The proposal also blocks foreign ownership of express couriers operating in India and requires large private courier services to fork over 10 percent of their profits to a fund that helps the government improve its delivery service to the country’s rural areas.
For now, UPS is hoping its retail stores bring more brand-name recognition in a country where many people still go to streetside letter-wallahs who type up their correspondence on manual typewriters.
Already, international express carriers are part of a new trade route as millions of Indian expatriates living in the U.S. and Canada use companies like UPS to send an endless stream of birthday and wedding gifts, as well as the latest technological gadgets that might be hard to find in India. In return, Indian families here send their relatives abroad hard-to-find Indian spices, textiles and other gifts from the homeland, turning international companies like UPS into the modern-day equivalent of ancient trade routes. The UPS Store chain offers packaging and express shipping, as well as digital printing, office supplies and ticketing services for Jet Airways, one of India’s largest airlines.

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Hutton: strike will destroy Royal Mail

Posted by | Jul 21, 2007 | |

Postal workers have been warned by John Hutton, the new business minister, that they risk destroying the Royal Mail’s future by striking – dashing union hopes that the Government might favor their cause.

Hutton gave his warning ahead of two weeks of rolling strikes due to start on Wednesday. Royal Mail has already suffered two one-day strikes by 130,000 workers opposed to its modernization plans and its pay offer but is now proposing a series of smaller strikes on successive days.

Mail counters and cash-handling will be hit by Wednesday’s action with sorters due to strike on Thursday. The following day Britain’s busiest postal hub, at Heathrow, will close. The rolling programme means only a small group of strikers lose pay but the disruption to deliveries becomes cumulative.

Royal Mail, led by Chairman Allan Leighton, has offered a 2.5 per cent pay increase but is demanding GBP 380m of cost cuts from automation. The Communication Workers’ Union is demanding 27 per cent over five years.

Leighton says the state-owned mail service cannot afford to pay more because it is losing business to commercial rivals that pay lower wages. Some 20 per cent of post is now handled by private firms and this week’s strikes and confusion will encourage more customers to switch.

Leighton had hoped to bring the workforce onside by persuading the Government to give workers equity in Royal Mail. Hutton is standing by Labour’s manifesto commitment not to sell the business but appears willing to consider any workable plan Leighton can agree with unions.

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DHL takes capacity stakes

Posted by | Jul 21, 2007 | |

DHL has long depended on the capacity of others for its cargo lift, but the operator’s latest moves in international and domestic markets show clear signs that controlling capacity is increasingly important in the express business. The carrier took a big step last month toward greater influence – although DHL insists it is not control – of lift with a 49 percent equity stake in ASTAR Air Cargo, one of its two outsourced lift providers in the United States.

The financial interest, for undisclosed terms, in the independent cargo airline that was once DHL Airways follows by several months DHL’s similar equity stake in Polar Air Cargo, a USD 150 million interest that came along with an agreement to guarantee DHL space on Polar’s 747 freighters. DHL also has increased its interest in Blue Dart, the largest domestic air express operator in India to boost its presence in that growing market.

“Our investment in ASTAR signals another major commitment to the U.S. market by DHL,” said Hans Hickler, chief executive officer of DHL Express in the United States.

Hickler joins the ASTAR board under the purchase, joining airline President and CEO John Dasburg and the two non-management owners. That, along with the 49 percent interest and 24.9 percent voting stake, keeps Deutsche Post-owned DHL within the bounds of U.S. legal restrictions against foreign ownership of airlines.

ASTAR attorney Elliott Seiden said the U.S. Department of Transportation had already approved the equity purchase. “We assured them this would not come close to tipping the scales on DOT’s ownership and control rules,” he said.

The only impact on ASTAR’s operations, said Seiden, was that DHL and ASTAR had extended their ACMI contract for U.S. domestic express flights for four years, to 2019, making their relationship “more stable, more secure.”

DHL’s other air capacity provider in the United States, ABX Air, has been seeking to diversify its business to become less dependent on DHL and recently signed a freighter lease agreement with All Nippon Airways. An ASTAR spokesman said DHL equity stake “doesn’t restrain or restrict ASTAR from pursuing” other business.

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Hutch enters into collaboration with Indian postal services

Posted by | Jul 21, 2007 | |

India’s leading telecom service provider Hutch and the Indian Postal services today announced a unique public-private partnership in an endeavor to promote telecom services among the masses.

”Under this partnership subscribers can now submit their Hutch bills at their nearest post office. The payment has to be made through cash. Subscriber will receive an electronic receipt after transaction. Service will be available at 255 locations in Gujarat with the first phase covering 135 locations,” Hutch’s Gujarat senior vice president (sales and marketing) Mr Balesh Sharma told reporters here.

The company has been exploring innovative options to make bill payment a simple process. Mr Sharma said and stressed that accessibility of services is the key to customer satisfaction.

”Through this latest service initiative, Hutch subscribers can conveniently pay their bills by cash at the nearest post office,” Mr Sharma said.

The service is completely automated and will be available across 255 locations in various districts of Gujarat including Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Bhavnagar, Gandhidham, Jamnagar, Mehsana, Rajkot, Surat and Vapi.

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Workers at four of DHL's independent carriers join Teamsters

Posted by | Jul 21, 2007 | |

About 70 workers at four independent carriers that serve DHL joined the Teamsters, a union official said Friday.

Workers at E.D. Express and Supreme Delivery Service voted for the move this week, while employees last week ratified the union’s presence at Jennings and Associates, according to Dennis Hower, vice president of Teamsters Local 773 in Allentown.

At a fourth company, Northeastern Express, the employer voluntarily recognized the workers’ right to unionize, Hower said.

The four businesses are on Marcon Boulevard in Hanover Township, Lehigh County.

Meanwhile, about 400 workers at DHL’s distribution center in Upper Macungie Township have been stymied in efforts to unionize.

The American Postal Workers Union organized a news conference July 12 to call attention to the issue and what the union calls the unjust firing of an employee and labor organizer, Eliana Rios.

The Teamsters, which represents about 12,000 workers either at DHL or affiliated contractors, is also attempting to organize workers at the DHL facility in Lehigh County, Hower said Friday.

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DHL wishes to further partnership with Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Corporation

Posted by | Jul 20, 2007 | |

DHL Vietnam has shrugged off the idea of setting up a totally foreign-owned firm in favor of expanding cooperation with the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Corporation (VNPT).

VNPT started acting as agents for DHL in 1988 with the first bilateral deal inked in Ho Chi Minh City. The Germany-based company got permission to set up a joint venture with a 51 percent stake with the largest telecommunications group in Vietnam in January 2007 in order to meet ever-growing market demands.

Vietnam has allowed a foreign company to hold a 51 pct stake in an express delivery joint venture as part of its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, wholly foreign-owned express companies have to wait until 2012 to go into operation.

VNPT is quite a familiar service provider to the Vietnamese with a wide agent network covering 52 cities and provinces across Vietnam.

Baxter said his company with a market share of 40 percent in Vietnam is consistently experiencing double digit growth exceeding 20 percent in Vietnam as the manufacturing sector continues to grow, and Vietnam realizes its export potential.

DHL has already kicked off a 14 million USD project to build two major service centers in southern Dong Nai province and Hanoi and to purchase a new fleet of vehicles. The move is expected to help DHL rival around 20 other foreign market players including TNT, Fedex, UPS and JNE.

TNT of Australia has just brought to service the trans-Asia road network (ARN) in Vietnam after adding 6 more million EUR to its project kicked off in 2005. After the first phase with total budget of 2 million EUR, the ARN project created a road linking Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

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Harry Potter gets special delivery

Posted by | Jul 20, 2007 | |

In postal delivery centers all around the world, hundreds of small parcels marked “not to be delivered before 21 July” are being heavily guarded. The content of each package is the same: the latest novel recounting the adventures of Harry Potter.

On 21 July 2007, millions of copies of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel will go on sale in bookshops and other outlets. And for those who have already placed their order by mail, phone or Internet, it is often the postman who will deliver this long-awaited book.

In the United States, for example, USPS delivered 1.8 million books on Saturday, while in the United Kingdom Royal Mail delivered 600,000 copies; in other words, by the British operator’s reckoning, one UK household in 43 will receive the book by post. Canada Post distributed 80 000 copies. Swiss Post and France’s La Poste made also special deliveries on 21 July. Operators are pulling out all the stops to ensure that the millions of books were delivered on time.

From 2004 to 2005, the global number of ordinary parcels sent domestically and internationally rose by 11 pct, for a total of 6 billion parcels delivered annually representing 16 millions per day. It’s unusual for so many identical articles to be delivered within such a short space of time, and some postal operators have looked for innovative delivery solutions. For example, Deutsche Post, the German operator, and Swiss Post delivered the book to impatient readers shortly after midnight in 2005 (and also in 2003 in Germany).

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