Tag: Air Transport

The DHL parcel delivery service said Thursday it was pulling its intercontinental hub – and thousands of jobs – out of Belgium because authorities refused to accept an increase in noisy night flights. DHL workers immediately went on strike to protest the loss of some 1,700 jobs, instead of the thousands in additional jobs they had been promised under the company’s planned expansion of its hub in the Belgian capital. “We had a vision of making Brussels national airport the most modern and state-of-the-art hub of global logistics network. However we have now reached the point where we realize that there is no political support,” said DHL Express Europe CEO Peter Kruse. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, however, said the talks finally broke down because DHL kept on adding “additional conditions, additional planes, more flights. Of course, they made it impossible.”

DHL criticized a Belgian government proposal for dealing with noisy night flights over the capital as unfeasible Tuesday, and threatened to move its European hub and thousands of jobs out of the country. The German-based parcel delivery company told Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt that if it’s not allowed to fly at least 16 more intercontinental flights out of Brussels airport, the company will be forced to downgrade operations in Belgium and move its hub elsewhere. Under a government compromise being studied, DHL would be allocated four extra night flights until it takes action to reduce noise over the densely populated capital region. The company would be asked to upgrade or renew its McDonnell Douglas MD11 aircraft by 2011 or buy other quieter jets.
DHL said such a plan was not viable. “If we want to have our intercontinental hub, we need to have planes that can fly intercontinental flights,” said DHL spokesman Xavier De Buck.