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DHL (USA) completes hub automation at Riverside facility

Posted by | Mar 19, 2007 | |

DHL has completed the automation of its West Coast Distribution Facility in Riverside, Calif. The auto sort system upgrades now in place will allow DHL to increase letter-and-package throughput and provide customers with greater track-and-trace capabilities.

Key customer benefits of the automation effort include greater letter-and-package visibility through the auto sort system’s track-and-trace features as well as increased speed in the handling and processing of shipments. With the transition to auto sort functions, package throughput will increase by 28 percent. Letter-handling capabilities will improve by 67 percent.

The automation of the 262,000-sq.-ft. facility is part of DHL’s comprehensive USD 160 million hub investment program. The state-of-the-art equipment at the facility includes shoe-sort and tilt-tray systems, loaders, unloaders, singulators, dimensional and image scanners, scan tunnels and video coding.

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FedEx announces next-business-day domestic express service in China

Posted by | Mar 19, 2007 | |

FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp. announced that it will offer next-business-day domestic express service in China beginning May 28, 2007. Combined with the company’s international express service, the new domestic offering will connect businesses both within China and around the world. FedEx connects more than 90 percent of China’s GDP to the rest of the world through its global network.

The new domestic services, expected to be fully operational in June 2007, will serve China’s burgeoning market with next-business-day, time-definite delivery service to 19 cities and a day-definite service to more than 200 cities throughout the country. Real-time package status tracking will let customers know where their shipments are every step of the way.

Like the U.S. express hub-and-spoke system which FedEx pioneered, the domestic express network includes a hub-and-spoke system centered at the Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, located in East China’s Zhejiang Province. The newly established hub will initially be able to sort up to 9,000 packages per hour.

A domestic carrier, Okay Airways, will provide the domestic air transportation. Using three Boeing 737 freighters, Okay Airways will operate an air cargo domestic network within China in support of FedEx. The aircraft will operate two circular routes nightly, covering the country’s major airports.

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TNT and FedEx run business in China alone

Posted by | Mar 19, 2007 | |

The world’s Big Four express names gradually step into an independent running term in China – which has nodded their activities of operating wholly owned affiliates in the country according to the commitments to its WTO entry – coinciding with two acquisitions.

The Holand-headquartered company officially announced the completion of the Hoau Logistics Group acquisition on March 14. The Chinese authorities approved it days ago. However, the company declined to unveil the deal’s accounting information.

Industry analysts point out that the goal of TNT is to integrate its businesses in China on the basis of the Chinese company’s network and its 170,000 clients. TNT will build on this network and use it to further access its network worldwide.

Tianjin DTW Group Co., Ltd., another Chinese logistics service provider based in Tianjin, near Beijing, capital of China, announced that its sale of a 50% stake in Federal Express-DTW Co., Ltd. was completed on March 1.

FedEx Express reached an acquisition agreement about the deal and DTW Group’s domestic express assets valued at about USD 400 million on January 24, 2006.

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China air sector could grow by 10 percent

Posted by | Mar 19, 2007 | |

China’s aviation industry could expand by up to 10 percentage points above current growth rates if central controls are eased, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said.

‘Double-digit air traffic growth is a certainly possible in an economy growing by 8-10 pct annually, but controls over fares, routes, aircraft purchases, airport charges, fuel supply and distribution services are keeping China’s aviation market from achieving its full potential,’ CAPA’s executive chairman Peter Harbison said in a report.

The report added that the current situation is unlikely to change soon.

Total domestic deregulation was attempted in the mid 1990’s with disastrous results on airline profitability and after the arduous airline consolidation efforts of the first part of this decade central controls will likely be maintained for the foreseeable future, the consultancy said.

‘An unfortunate by-product of these controls is that they may delay the advent of genuine domestic LCCs (low-cost carriers) in China’s market until the end of the decade,’ Harbison said, adding that China’s nascent independent private airline sector will find the going tough in this environment and will largely remain confined to serving niche roles.

Meanwhile, China Southern needs to quickly find a partner for its freight business or risk getting left behind, particularly with FedEx moving to Guangzhou, where China Southern is based, by 2008, CAPA said.

It added that China Eastern also needs a strategic investor to help turn around its struggling operation in the highly competitive Shanghai market.

CAPA also said that foreign investment in China’s airport sector is expected to gain momentum in 2007, led by Changi Airport International’s breakthrough agreement in Nanjing.

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Kuehne + Nagel rises to challenge of congested British roads

Posted by | Mar 19, 2007 | |

Kuehne+Nagel is opening an intermodal terminal in central England to meet the increasing challenge of moving deepsea containers through British ports on ever more congested roads.

The Swiss global logistics provider has signed a deal to use part of ABP Connect’s rail-connected Hams Hall facility on the outskirts of Birmingham. It expects to start operations there within two months.

K+N’s chief executive for North West Europe, Peter Ulber, said that initially the intention was to run up to three container trains a day, two from Southampton and one from Felixstowe.

The development of those operations will help K+N to double the proportion of ocean freight containers it moves around the country by rail rather than by road.

‘Three years ago we had zero movement of containers by rail,’ he said. ‘Now the figure is about 25% and we expect within two years to increase that to 50%.’

The planned opening of the Hams Hall operation, was ‘in line with the strategy of being able to control (container) flows ourselves all the way to the distribution centres of our customers’.

In addition to the container train connections from and to leading ports, contracted out to existing operators such as EWS and Freightliner, the Hams Hall terminal would also handle ‘at least a certain percentage’ of the company’s road-based container movements in the country.

Last year K+N’s British contract logistics division had seen GBP80m (USD158m) of existing contracts renewed and also secured GBP140m of new contracts.

Based on turnover, K+N is now number three in the British contract logistics market behind DHL and Wincanton. Plans for further developing that business included expanding total capacity by about 10%.

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Nightfreight announces financial results 2006

Posted by | Mar 19, 2007 | |

Nightfreight has announced its financial results for 2006. The company’s financial performance has improved turnover by GBP 8.4m (6.83 pct), and Operating Profit by GBP 3.1m (250 pct) demonstrating the benefits of its ongoing investment programme in customer service and operational developments which continues to radically improve the business.
The turnover and profit growth have exceeded the budgeted targets and have positioned the company a year ahead of its original plans. This growth is attributable to successful sales activity within all of the Company’s business units as a result of increased investment in sales activity. This sales activity was converted to additional profit due to the revised operational processes.

In addition to developing the sales growth of the organisation, the Company has strategically relocated a number of sites to offer better customer service, and undertaken a fleet renewal program enhancing the fleet’s capability to undertake the Company’s services. These investments will continue in the 2007 financial year.

Steve Allen, CEO Nightfreight Group, said: “Throughout the 2006 financial year, the company has made good progress improving its financial performance and commencing its transition to becoming a logistics and solutions business, offering customers new and innovative integrated services that will meet their changing requirements. We continue to improve our customer service offering whilst further developing our capability for the home delivery and contract logistics markets.”

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Postbank achieves record results

Posted by | Mar 19, 2007 | |

In 2006, Postbank achieved the best results in its history: pre-tax profits totaled 941 million, up 31.6 percent on the previous year (the comparative figures for 2005 are pro forma figures including theoretical amounts for BHW and the Deutsche Post retail outlets). The Bank’s other key figures are also extremely encouraging. The cost/income ratio improved from 75.0 percent to 68.3 percent, while the ratio for the traditional banking business, i.e. excluding transaction banking, fell by 6.8 percent to 66.7 percent. Return on equity before taxes increased by 4.0 percent to 18.9 percent.
The Bank’s balance sheet-related revenues, i.e. the total of net interest income, net trading income and net income from investment securities, increased by 10.7 percent year-on-year to 2.71 billion.
Net interest income remained the key revenue driver, although interest rates provided only limited positive impetus: at 2.2 billion, net interest income was up 11.6 percent on the previous year. Among other things, this reflects the expansion on the volume of customer loans, and the low-risk mortgage lending portfolio in particular.
Net trading income increased by 6.1 percent year-on-year to 245 million, while net income from investment securities rose by 8.1 percent to 292 million. This includes the book gains from the sale of non-strategic equity interests in the amount of 84 million.

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