BY MARK B. SOLOMON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR – NEWS
AIR FREIGHT
Transportation Report
INSIDE THE HALLS OF DELIVERY GIANT DHL,
the Jan. 30, 2009, termination of its money-hemor-rhaging domestic U.S. express service is characterized
as a “repositioning” and not a withdrawal. Semantics aside, it was
a humbling blow for a company that had known little but resounding successes during its first 40 years.
Yet with those billions of dollars in losses came understanding.
DHL Express returned to its original model, where the U.S. was one
node in the company’s 220-country air and ground delivery network,
by far the world’s largest. From the 2009 date on, all U.S. pickups and
deliveries would have an international origin or destination.
Results over the subsequent years appear to bear out the wisdom
of the move: Since 2013, its U.S. inbound volumes have risen 13
percent, compounded annually. Outbound volumes increased at an
8- to 10-percent compound annual rate from 2010 to 2017. Annual
revenue compounded annually by 9 percent over that time.
DHL Express today averages 200,000 daily domestic outbound
shipments, roughly double its 2009 totals. In 2017, a rare year of
A yellow-
letter day?
It’s been nearly a decade since
DHL ceased domestic U.S. express
service. Its future success here
will depend on executing in a very
different delivery environment.
