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UPS may cancel Airbus order

Posted by | Jan 20, 2007 | |

U.S. parcel delivery company UPS, the last remaining customer for the cargo version of Airbus A380, may cancel its order in what would be the latest defection from the long-delayed superjumbo, a French newspaper reported Friday.

Business daily Les Echos cited unidentified sources as saying that United Parcel Service Inc. would cancel its order for 10 A380s next week. Such a move has long been rumored.

Airbus spokeswoman Barbara Kracht said Friday that she had no information about a possible cancellation. UPS officials in France would not comment on the report.

The cancellation would leave Airbus with no more customers for the cargo version of the A380, after FedEx Corp. and International Lease Finance Corp. canceled their orders last year amid repeated delays to the plane’s construction schedule.

UPS, which is scheduled to receive its first plane in the second half of 2009, said last fall it was still considering whether to change the order.

Kracht insisted Friday that the cargo version was “a very good airplane and the market is good.’

A spokesman for Airbus parent company EADS said it is sticking to its A380 cargo aircraft program regardless of how many customers it has.

“The decisive thing is not the number of current orders, but the market perspective in the long run. With 25 planes per year, it is very good,’ EADS spokesman Michael Hauger said.

Les Echos suggested a cancellation wouldn’t be all bad for the European planemaker, since it would allow Airbus to concentrate on the passenger version of the A380 — for which it has 142 firm orders — and potentially save up to one billion euros (USD1.3 billion).

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Consumer deliveries and international business to drive German CEP market growth

Posted by | Jan 19, 2007 | |

The German courier, express and parcels (CEP) market is likely to grow only moderately in the 4% – 5% range over the next few years. International business will continue to grow well while consumer deliveries will generate the bulk of new volumes in the domestic sector. Those are the key findings of the newly-published “CEP Market Fact Sheet Germany” from CEP-Research. The in-depth report also contains detailed market and competitor figures, profiles of the ten leading operators, and a comparative overview of their products.

Germany reinforced its status as Europe’s largest CEP market with total revenues of just over EUR 9.2 billion in 2005, the latest report by the Hamburg-based market research company revealed. The deferred parcels segment, accounting for over 60% of market revenues, grew faster than the express sector. Confirming the recent trend towards more online-generated parcels business, the B2C/C2C (or “consumer deliveries”) segment has grown to 32% of the market. Domestic business accounted for about 75% of market revenues. “We are now expecting a 4.6% increase for the overall market in 2006, with the B2C/C2C segment generating somewhat higher growth,” commented Robert Thyssen, CEP-Research manager.

In its medium-term forecast, CEP-Research predicted that the German market will grow moderately by 4.4% a year to reach total revenues of over EUR 11.4 billion in 2010. International growth will outpace domestic market growth. Key factors driving additional volumes will be the emergence of Central and Eastern Europe as an important regional import and export market, and rising international trade with Asia. While competition in the B2B sector will intensify, domestic market growth is likely to be mostly generated by increasing demand in the B2C and C2C segments.

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British DMA taps Rosemary Smith as new chairman

Posted by | Jan 19, 2007 | |

The Direct Marketing Association (UK) Ltd. has named veteran British direct marketer Rosemary Smith as its new chairman for a two-year term.

Ms. Smith, who is managing director of RSA Direct, succeeds Charles Ping, head of CRM at Guardian Newspapers. Previously deputy chairman of the British DMA, Ms. Smith has a three-pronged “e” strategy for her time at the helm.

Ms. Smith launched RSA Direct in 2003. She has run international list and data firms since the early 1990s, including Mardev, Direct Media International (UK) and Schober Direct Marketing/The Prospect Shop.

She is also chair of the DMA governance committee.

Ms. Smith’s replacement as DMA deputy chairman is David Metcalfe, head of wholesale banking development at Lloyds TSB Scotland. Mr. Metcalfe is former chairman of DMA Scotland.

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UPS may join Fedex in canceling Airbus A380 orders

Posted by | Jan 19, 2007 | |

United Parcel Service Inc. is expected to cancel an order for 10 freighter versions of the Airbus A380 superjumbo plane next week, French newspaper Les Echos said on Friday without citing sources.
For its part Airbus, owned by aerospace group EADS, could announce it will first focus on solving its problems with the passenger version of the A380 and await better times for it to produce a cargo version, Les Echos said.
But Airbus said it had no information on the reported plans “I have no information along that line,” a spokeswoman said.
Wiring installation problems have delayed deliveries of the double-decker plane by an average of two years, with the first delivery now due in late 2007 to Singapore Airlines, and led EADS to issue its third profit warning in less than a year on Wednesday.
A cancellation by UPS would follow a similar decision by its main rival FedEx Corp. which in November became the first company to cancel an A380 order, citing delivery delays.

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TNT Express Worldwide (Thailand) eyes 20 percent revenue growth

Posted by | Jan 18, 2007 | |

TNT Express Worldwide (Thailand) Co projects revenue to grow by 10 percent to 20 percent this year thanks to its domestic network expansion.
Marketing and commercial manager Ekkapong Na Ranong said TNT Express planned to increase its distribution depots in Thailand to 28 locations this year from 25 locations at present. However, the budget for setting up new depots was not finalised yet.

In addition, the company has launched a guaranteed express service in Thailand since Jan 1 that allows customers to send shipments weighing up to 500 kilogrammes for delivery before 9 am the next day.

The launch of the new service is possible because of the extensive network that TNT Express has built in Thailand over the last several years.

According to David Record, TNT Thailand’s country manager, the company has a presence in all major towns so it can provide a variety of products and services that enable customers to operate their businesses more efficiently.

Customers who choose the new service would pay 500 baht plus ordinary charges for TNT’s normal service, said Mr Record.

TNT planned to employ new service staff to operate the new service in Thailand, which requires longer working hours. The company also aimed to extend its Asia Road Network to China this year, he said.

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USPS asking mailers for more comments regarding mailing standards

Posted by | Jan 18, 2007 | |

The U.S. Postal Service is seeking additional comments from mailers on plans to revise its mailing standards to encourage mail preparation that is compatible with improved postal service processing capabilities.

The new standards, scheduled to accompany the proposed price adjustments in May, give customers more choices in terms of shape, sorting, packaging and containers that encourage more efficient mail preparation. The announcement was made in a Jan. 17 Federal Register notice, and comments on the proposal are being accepted through Jan. 31.

“Our pricing proposal reflects changes in operations and the marketplace and will enhance efficiency, offer more choices, and ensure that all types of mail cover their costs,” the USPS said in the notice. “We include incentives to create mail pieces compatible with our processing systems and to deposit flats and parcels closer to where they are delivered.”

In general, for commercial mailers, the USPS proposed new sorting options to reduce the number of trays in a mailing and new scheme preparations to give mailers access to lower rates and to better align flat-size mail preparation with mail processing.

It also added a new automated Address Change Service to reduce the costs associated with undeliverable-as-addressed mail. First-Class Mail parcel mailers would also have new barcode options, and the agency proposed new opportunities for mailers to combine Standard Mail and Package Services parcels in the same mailing.

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FedEx partner to open campus design center in the UK

Posted by | Jan 18, 2007 | |

UK Auxiliary Services announced the grand opening of the Design, Print and Mail Center in the White Hall Classroom Building at a ribbon cutting ceremony.

FedEx partnered with UK Auxiliary Services to open the new center.

Crutcher said this is only the beginning for the Design, Print and Mail Center. The next project is to open a retail store on campus where there is more visibility aside from the Classroom Building basement.

The partnership will also benefit faculty and staff while they are away from campus, such as while on sabbatical or traveling to a conference, by allowing them to use Lexington prices at other FedEx Kinko’s and charging the services to the university.

UK is now partnered as one of 1,700 FedEx Kinko’s in the nation. Steve Dillingham, managing director of operations for FedEx Kinko’s, said the available services will continue to expand.

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The ROI of Nice

Posted by | Jan 18, 2007 | |

Can this relationship be saved? That was one of the questions in the mind of Mike Hmel, FedEx Ground’s senior vice president of IT and CIO, as he prepared for a meeting with Sun Microsystems.
The IT department at FedEx Ground was struggling to develop a transportation management system (TMS) using what was a new technology in 1998 – Sun Microsystems’ Java software. The TMS would help determine the most efficient and cost-effective way for the $US5.3 billion company to move its tractors, trailers and dollies among its 29 hubs and more than 500 pickup/delivery terminals. As such, it would be the backbone of the Pittsburgh-based FedEx Corp. subsidiary.
But the multimillion-dollar development effort was “stuck in the mud”, according to Hmel. Implementing the software was far more complicated than Hmel had expected. Java was more than a programming language: It was a technology that would have a profound impact on FedEx Ground’s IT infrastructure, requiring a shift from two-tiered client/server computing environments to multi-tiered Web-based computing environments. It also demanded a new approach to application development. What’s more, FedEx Ground’s IT department wound up having to buy more products to support the development of the TMS. Consequently, the relationship between Sun and FedEx Ground grew strained, which didn’t make resolving the problems any easier.

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