Deutsche Post, the German post office, is to create the first global air network integrating both express and traditional air cargo by merging all its logistics activities under the DHL brand.
The significance of the announcement is that it will unite Danzas, the world's largest freight forwarder, which was bought by Deutsche Post in 1999, with DHL, one of the big four global express operators. Deutsche Post's take-over of DHL was approved in October by the European Commission.
The new entity will create a unified air, trucking and sales network worldwide. It will be the first to combine overtly both express and heavy cargo. DHL's rivals such as FedEx and UPS use traditional air cargo to fill their freighters, but make express shipments their core focus. The new DHL will break down that boundary.
It will also give Danzas' air forwarding operations access to its own exclusive air capacity. Until now, most major forwarders have prided themselves on being non-asset based, a notable exception being Panalpina, a Swiss-based global forwarder which has co-operated with airlines such as Luxembourg's Cargolux to create its own air routes.
Panalpina's concept was first known as Air Sea Broker, now ASB Air. In 1999 and 2000, Danzas also experimented with its own air routes, under the banner Starbroker. One example was a weekly Airbus A300B4 freighter from Frankfurt Hahn in Germany to Charlotte in North Carolina. This service later fell victim to the economic downturn.
The dream remained alive, however. The project name for the DHL/Danzas tie-up is Star; Deutsche Post confirms that of 115 areas of co-operation one is the use of DHL's 250 air routes to carry Danzas cargo. In turn, DHL is likely to use the substantial air freight volumes of Danzas, which in 2001 accounted for 6.2% of global air freight revenue according to IATA figures, to create a long-haul network, something it currently lacks.
Unlike FedEx and UPS which link Asia, Europe and the USA with widebody freighters, and TNT which is building a similar network in partnership with lessor Atlas Air, DHL has only three longhaul routes, using 757 freighters to link Brussels to Lagos, DHL's US hub in Cincinnati, and Bahrain and Dubai.
It is likely to expand this network by working with Lufthansa Cargo, which retains close ties with Deutsche Post and DHL despite selling its 25% stake in the latter to Deutsche Post this year. Lufthansa Cargo has already folded its European feeder freighter operation into DHL's out of Cologne, and talks are afoot about how this can be extended to long-haul routes.
Source: Airline Business
