WH Smith profits fall as US units feel the pinch
WH Smith, the UK news, magazine and book retailer, said that poor results at its international retail and news distribution businesses had depressed annual profits
Read MoreTag: Worldwide
DPWN Grows U.S. Air Express Network?
October 18, 2001 — Paul Needham, Reuters: “Deutsche Post World Net is looking at strengthening its presence in the U.S. air express market to complete the formation of its global express network, a board member told Reuters on Thursday. ‘We cannot operate this worldwide air express network without a strong U.S. presence. How this can be organised is something we are looking into,’ said Peter Kruse, board member for European express services while at the German logistics conference in Berlin. Kruse declined to comment on reports in German media that Deutsche Post was interested in acquiring listed transport company Airborne Express , the third-largest domestic air express transport operator in the U.S. after UPS and FedEx . Earlier on Thursday Deutsche Post CEO Klaus Zumwinkel described the reports as ‘speculation’ which had been circulating for 12 months or more. Airborne Express has also declined to comment on possible Deutsche Post interest.
Read MoreUPS earnings down on US slowdown and attacks
Earnings at United Parcel Service dropped 19 per cent in the third quarter, hurt by the slowing US economy and the shutdown of its air operations during the week of the September11 terrorist attacks
Read MoreOsterreichische Post unveils closure blacklist
Osterreichische Post AG, the Austrian postal service company, has unveiled the 666 offices it is looking to close. This is a scaled-down version of the original 712 offices it had chosen to shut.
It is believed that there is an agreement between the company and the Land of Carinthia, under which all its offices are to remain open until at least January 2004.
Read MoreGATS to grow, postal project sees good returns
Postal operators looking to make savings on the price of international mail delivery have long faced the same three fixed costs: local handling charges, terminal dues and the cost of line-haul.
In April, the Global Alliance of Transportation Systems (GATS), funded by the Swiss Post Office set out to challenge the cost of line-haul by consolidating the mail of a number of postal operators into ULD’s at one hub and then flying them on in unitised containers. Pioneered at Heathrow, the idea was to force down the cost paid to the airlines for small numbers of items by booking larger aggregated volumes.
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