Deutsche Post World Net AG denied reports that the German postal service may stop delivering mail on Saturdays.
‘It’s absolutely clear that nothing will change about Saturday deliveries at Deutsche Post,’ chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel said in a statement today.
German news agencies today cited Zumwinkel as saying Deutsche Post may decide early next year to limit postal service to five days a week.
Read MoreThe Board of Directors of UPS announced that Gary L. Crittenden, who will become the chief financial officer of Citigroup on March 12, has withdrawn his name for election to the UPS Board.
On Feb. 14, the UPS Board announced it had nominated Crittenden to stand for election as a new director at the company’s annual shareowners meeting in May. At that time, Crittenden was the chief financial officer of the American Express Co. He subsequently agreed to become CFO of Citigroup and under Citigroup policy, senior executives may only serve on one outside board.
Read MoreThe commission wants to open postal markets to unrestricted competition, forcing E.U. nations to withdraw state support for national postal services.
Proposals put forward by the commission would have forced France to unwind its unlimited guarantee for all liabilities held by La Poste, which makes the company a low-risk borrower. The country’s 17,000 post offices would also have had to share the market with global mail carriers like TNT and Deutsche Post AG (DPW.XE), as well as express carriers like United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) and FedEx Corp. (FDX).
France was one of the fiercest critics of the reforms, arguing the moves would crush La Poste and threaten services in small towns. Competitors would cherry pick the most profitable businesses, such as city deliveries, and neglect rural regions, it said.
The commission’s current proposal calls for prying opening the E.U. postal market by 2009.
While the E.U. heads of state and government Friday gave general backing to the commission’s plan, they shied away from endorsing the 2009 timeframe and kept open a wide window for France to keep protecting La Poste’s monopoly.
The leaders called for “further liberalization of the postal markets, while ensuring the financing of an efficient universal service.”
Italian state-owned postal services company Poste Italiane’s airline Mistral Air will expand its fleet with three new Boeing 737-300 Quick Change aircraft and plans to start transporting passengers on charter flights.
The new aircraft are equipped to allow a quick change from cargo to passenger transport configuration, thanks to a system of rails. In 40 minutes, the fuselage’s cargo containers can be removed and replaced by passenger seats.
Thanks to the Quick Change system, Mistral Air can double its flight capacity, by exploiting the night time to transport cargo and the daytime and weekends to transport passengers on charter flights.
The Boeing 737-300 can transport up to 145 passengers to destinations such as Spain, the Canary Islands, Greece, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. The hubs of Mistral Air’s fleet will be based at Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino and Palermo airports.
Mistral Air’s industrial plan targets for the next five years a total revenue of 200 mln euro (USD261.8 mln), with an increase by 150 mln euro (USD196.4 mln) from the current revenue.
The immediate target of the airline is to transport 210,000 passengers in 2007 and to achieve a total passenger traffic of 1.0 million in the next four years.
DHL has unveiled a prototype of an RFID-enabled van using software and hardware provided by SAVR Communications. The company developed the van to show existing and future customers how RFID technology can benefit them, as well as independent contractors and DHL itself in tracking the movement of vehicles and the individual packages they transport. However, the prototype has not been field-tested.
The prototype DHL van, which had been under development for the past few months, comes equipped with an RFID interrogator and antennas for locating an RFID-tagged package within the van, as well as a GPS device for monitoring the location of the van across its delivery route.
The current prototype van comes equipped with a SAVR UHF Gen 2 RFID interrogator complying with the ISO 18000-6C standard, and seven antennas installed throughout the interior of the van. They capture the RFID number of each tag on a package as it is loaded into the van and send that number to the reader. Antennas then automatically capture the number again when the package is removed. With SAVR software, DHL’s back-end system would be able to determine whether the package is being loaded or removed based on which antenna (such as the antenna in the back of the vehicle or by the door) captures the package’s RFID tag number.
Read MoreDeutsche Post’s DHL is looking to expand overseas shipments from the United States, a senior U.S. manager said.
James Cameron, executive vice president of operations, said Plantation-based DHL has posted a ”slight uptick” in U.S. package volume. However, he added, DHL doesn’t necessarily want to be as big in the United States as FedEx and UPS. ”The scope of what we have is nowhere near the two big giants in the U.S.,” said Cameron.
DHL, a unit of Deutsche Post, Europe’s largest postal service, has spent more than $2 billion in the United States since 2003. DHL said in December it didn’t expect to break even in the United States until 2009.
DHL held about 2 percent of the U.S. ground delivery market at the end of 2006, with UPS controlling 68 percent and FedEx with 18 percent, according to Rick Paterson, an analyst with UBS Investment Research in New York. The U.S. Postal Service and other firms have the rest.
Deutsche Post, based in Bonn, labeled DHL’s U.S. unit its ”weakest performer” in December.
”DHL just does not compete with FedEx and UPS when it comes to service and reliability,” Daniel Ortwerth, an Edward Jones & Co. analyst in St. Louis, said. “The U.S. customer just does not tolerate that.”
Satish Jindel, president of Pittsburgh-based SJ Consulting, said he expects DHL to stick with its strategy of retaining the business it has already won in U.S. ground shipping for at least the next two years, until it is profitable.
DHL’s U.S. division has more than 21,000 employees and contracts for its air lift with closely held Astar Air Cargo, based in Miami, and ABX Air, based in Wilmington, Ohio. As a foreign-owned company, DHL is prohibited from owning a U.S. airline.
Read MoreA total of GBP313 million of support from the UK government has been authorised by the European Commission in accordance with the EC Treatys rules on state aid.
This is to allow Post Office limited to continue to provide public services for the financial year 2007/08. These include an increasing range of commercial services such as lottery tickets, foreign exchange, telephone and insurance products as well as cash facilities, bill payment, licensing and, of course, Royal Mail, the UKs main postal services provider.
Public services are a vital part of the European economy, and the Commission recognises their importance, said EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Aid can therefore be approved where the amount is strictly limited to what is necessary to cover the costs of public service obligations.
In 2003, the Commission approved a system whereby losses incurred by the entirely state-owned company in providing public service would be covered by government funds and in December 2006, the UK announced the intention to extend this for another year. The amount notified for the financial year beginning 1 April 2007 is GBP313 million (USD460 million).
Read MoreCorporate customers of Royal Mail who have received poor service will have their ability to secure compensation curbed as a result of a Court of Appeal decision yesterday.
Three senior judges partially reversed a High Court ruling, handed down in December 2005, over the terms of a compensation scheme, which went in favour of Postwatch, the consumer body, and paved the way for users of bulk mail services to claim tens of millions of pounds.
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