DHL-What's going to happen?

[erichartmann]

A few years ago when Fedex was just starting to offer ground service, most of the stuff going to and from the west coast was flown. This was because on the wast coast they did not have an effective ground network in place. With in 1 year, they trucks were in place and the freight was trucked.

The difference between the Fedex and DHL situations is for Fedex it was a temporary solution while the network was being built. For DHL it is standard practice with no real evidence of a real ground network being built.

The key is a reliable ground delivery network on which to base the ground system. To date, DHL has not been able to make the old Airborne's ground delivery net work using the IC's. They must first resolve that before they will be able to build a customer base and a ground system. If they fail to get reliable delivery to the customer....

 

[abxaviator]

DHL Express finalises plans for transatlantic 767 operation
By Max Kingsley-Jones

DHL Express will reveal more details about its Boeing 767 transatlantic operation in the coming months, including the shape of its network and the crewing arrangements.

The express package carrier placed orders for six General Electric CF6-80C2-powered 767-300Fs in March last year, with deliveries due to begin in 2009.

DHL Express Aviation chief executive Charles Graham says that the order was designed “to secure the capacity” ahead of deciding the network and operation strategy.

Speaking today in Frankfurt during the unveiling of the AeroLogic name and brand with joint venture partner Lufthansa Cargo, Graham said that details of the 767 operation are being finalised.

“We're still evaluating how we will crew the operation,” says Graham. He expects to be in a position to disclose this and details of where the aircraft will operate to in the USA from its European hub in Leipzig, Germany, in the second quarter.

Potential alternatives are to keep the flying in-house, or use one of its associated US carriers - Miami-based partner Astar Air Cargo which operates DHL’s US-based Airbus A300s, Boeing 727s and McDonnell Douglas DC-8s or Polar Air Cargo in which DHL holds a 49% stake.

DHL is in the process of consolidating its European “mega-hub” operations at Leipzig. Flights from Cologne/Bonn airport moved last year and services from its long-standing primary hub at Brussels National Airport will move to Leipzig at the end of March.

 

[time builder]

Not necessairily so. Depends on what you are charging for both the ground and air, which determines your margins, and how much ground you are moving by air. It's called yield management. There is no doubt that moving ground by air will reduce your profit margin though, and if you do enough of it, you will lose money.

Also, if you are going to ferry an aircraft from A to B on a regular basis, you might as well put the ground on it rather than hire a truck to haul the ground from A to B, so long as the added fuel costs are less than the cost of hiring the truck. This is true of any ground freight you have so long as the airplane is going to fly anyway.

This does not mean this is a good way to run the business. It would be far better to find a way to move the inbound freight to A without having to ferry the empty aircraft back to B. Perhaps sell some additional customers on the air side, or increase the ground freight to the point where trucking it makes sense. Neither will happen overnight (no pun intended) and service reliability must increase for either to occur.

From what I see, it's not filling up empty space on a plane with ground boxes that's the problem. Rather, if you consistently have room for a ton of ground, you're probably flying too big of a plane in the first place.

Just speculating, but if those EMB120s being parked by Skywest have much life left in them, you could utilize them in many situations.