Tag: USA

DHL launches New York overnight express to Europe

Posted by | Jun 25, 2007 | |

DHL, introduced the service for urgent next day documents from New York City to major European destinations.

Available for customers with shipments originating from lower Manhattan, DHL’s next day delivery trip begins with the pickup of urgent material by courier for transfer to the DHL helicopter pad in New York City. Shipments are then flown by helicopter directly to John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport, avoiding New York City traffic. From there, they move on flights bound for nine cities in Europe.

Available Monday thru Thursday, the new offering gives customers the ability to get their shipments delivered next business day from New York City to Amsterdam, Holland; Brussels, Belgium; Dublin, Ireland; Frankfurt, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland; London, England; Madrid, Spain; Paris, France; and Zurich, Switzerland. Next day by 12:00 noon delivery is available to some of the main financial centers in Europe.

For more than two decades, DHL has been leveraging its Manhattan helicopter to serve the financial district, and is the only express shipper to provide continual same day and overnight delivery of cash letters from Europe and Asia to the US banking system — a service vital to the world’s leading financial institutions. By cutting as much as a day off the time in transit for these shipments, financial institutions and their customers can save millions of dollars each year in otherwise lost interest and delayed business transactions.

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Intelligent Mail Barcode increases mailing efficiency

Posted by | Jun 22, 2007 | |

Last September the U.S. Postal Service allowed mailers to use the Intelligent Mail Barcode, which adds a new level of control to mail tracking and address changes service. In 2009 the IMB is slated to replace Postnet and Postal alpha numeric encoding technique, or PLANET, bar codes on domestic mail.

This new bar code has been popularly promoted as a combination of the Postnet bar code and the PLANET bar code, able to route and track mail with a single bar code.

The IMB brings much more than a simple combination of codes. Using the IMB, mailers know if and when mail gets delivered. Mail that is redirected by the Postal Service is now easily identified. Mailers can request address changes service information in the bar code at a greatly reduced cost. Many aspects of the delivery tracking expectations that FedEx and UPS have created are now met by the Postal Service, but at a dramatically lower cost.

The IMB can be used as a replacement for the Postnet code with the IMB for routing without asking for any address update or tracking information. In addition, the mailer can get tracking information from the Confirm program as currently done with the PLANET code but with more precision from the additional digits. Lastly, the mailer can request an electronic change notice for addresses that have a forwarding order. Mailers can request any combination of these services on a piece-by-piece basis.

Using the IMB, mailers will be able to track the progress of individual pieces. This means that mailers can use the IMB data to anticipate in-home dates and coordinate other marketing efforts with that mail. They will also be able to immediately determine the quality and accuracy or mailing lists by identifying what mail pieces are rerouted and returned.

Using the OneCode ACS feature, mailers will also be able to comply with recently published move update requirements for Standard Mail as well as those in place for discounted First-Class Mail.

This new bar code does a lot more than track delivery times. Unlike current postal bar codes, the IMB is not simply a font. An encoder, a USPS computer program, is required to convert the numeric value to the new bar code. This adds some complexity to the process for mailing companies, and the mailing software vendors are currently looking to develop better solutions to work with the IMB.

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Postal workers protest outsourcing

Posted by | Jun 22, 2007 | |

Two labor unions are planning pickets at 16 locations across Florida, including Jacksonville, to protest the U.S. Postal Service’s outsourcing policies.

Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association chose June 27 to demonstrate against the policies that the unions say will diminish service to postal customers and endanger the future viability of the Postal Service.

The pickets will be held outside post offices or in neighborhoods where mail is currently being delivered by non-postal employees, Judy Willoughby, NALC national business agent, said in a release.

Pickets will be at the main Jacksonville post office on Kings Road from 4 to 6 p.m.

NALC’s effort to fight privatization of mail delivery has gained support in Congress. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has introduced The Mail Delivery Protection Act of 2007 (S. 1457) to outlaw most outsourcing, and in the House of Representatives, Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J., has authored H. Res. 282, which would condemn the practice and urge the Postal Service to halt the practice immediately.

The NALC represents 298,000 active and retired letter carriers of the U.S. Postal Service in all 50 states and United States jurisdictions.

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FedEx to Base Pilots Overseas

Posted by | Jun 22, 2007 | |

FedEx Corp. plans to establish pilot bases in Paris and Hong Kong, saving it the cost of getting U.S.-based pilots to work and giving it more flexibility as it takes on DHL.

The Memphis-based company and the pilots’ union are discussing an amendment to the pilots’ contract, including cost-of-living stipends and details about the planes FedEx intends to fly in each market.

When domiciles are established, pilots who choose to commute from the United States, or from anywhere else, will have to pay their own fares.

FedEx has bases in Memphis, Los Angeles, Subic Bay and Anchorage, Alaska.

“You want to have your pilots based where the flight originates because that’s where you have the longest layovers,” said Satish Jindel at S J Consulting near Pittsburgh. “It gives the pilots a better quality of life and better scheduling.”

The change comes as FedEx adds capacity to its fleet and prepares to open its Asian hub in Guangzhou, China, in December 2008. FedEx’s Asian business is growing by double digits; growth in Europe is slightly less.

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PinPoint to develop new Houston FedEx freight facility

Posted by | Jun 22, 2007 | |

Developer PinPoint Commercial has been selected to develop and lease a 243-door, 153,853-square-foot, cross dock freight facility in Northwest Houston to FedEx Freight East Inc. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

The terminal will be located at Houston-based PinPoint Commercial’s 115-acre Satsuma Station Industrial Park near the intersection of Highway 290 and FM 1960, where it will occupy more than one-third of the total acreage.

According to PinPoint Commercial, the design for the terminal already has been expanded by about one-third from the original plan because of the estimated growth in freight needs of the Houston area and the need for a presence in Northwest Houston.

It is believed it will be the largest hub in the FedEx Freight network. The project is expected to open by the second quarter of 2008.

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