Everything about Dhl totally explained
DHL (originally
standing for Dalsey,
Hillblom and
Lynn) is a
Deutsche Post World Net company of
Germany that provides international
Mail, Express, Logistics and Finance. The company was founded in 1969 by
Adrian Dalsey,
Larry Hillblom, and Robert Lynn.
The trio initially provided a
courier service between the
Continental United States and
Hawaii then expanded the business from there. In 1998, Deutsche Post World Net began to acquire
shares in DHL, finally reached majority
ownership in 2001, and completed the purchase in 2002.
Overview
DHL's global headquarters are located in
Bonn and
London (its
Exel subsidiary). Headquarters for the
Americas are located in
Plantation, Florida, while its Asia Pacific & EEMEA headquarters are located respectively in
Singapore &
Bahrain/Brussels.
DHL owns its own
cargo airlines,
European Air Transport, based in Brussels, and
DHL Air, based in the UK. EAT currently operates out of
Brussels Airport in
Belgium with a fleet of Boeing 757SF freighters and a fleet of Airbus A300 B4 freighters, but is in the process of transferring the bulk of its European air operations to
Leipzig/Halle Airport, Germany in 2008. DHL Air Ltd operates out of
East Midlands Airport with a fleet of 02 Boeing 757 freighter aircraft.
Major competitors include
FedEx,
UPS,
TNT, and national post carriers such as
United States Postal Service and
Royal Mail. However, DHL has a minor partnership with the USPS, which allows DHL to deliver small packages to the recipient through the USPS network. This service, called DHL@Home, saves DHL from making expensive trips to residential areas to deliver a single package.
DHL is well known for its ability to offer freight and package shipping service worldwide, including to countries such as
Iraq and
Myanmar. As it's German-owned, DHL isn't affected by U.S.
embargoes or sanctions and will ship to
Cuba or
North Korea.
Starting in 2006, Deutsche Post World Net launched its First Choice initiative, which is being rolled out to all DPWN business organizations. The First Choice initiative has the goal of improving the way DHL and its parent company DPWN communicates with its customers, as well as strengthen customer loyalty and increase the efficiency and quality of all products and services offered.
DHL may require some international recipients to pay any customs charges into DHL's foreign bank account and proof of payment provided, before package delivery can be completed. Such cases may involve a physical journey to the DHL bank and/or the local DHL office, although the recipient can opt to pay for the charges of the delivery at their premises.
In
Major League Baseball sponsorship, it's the "Official logistics provider of Major League Baseball" and sponsors the
Hometown Heroes.
DHL is organized in four divisions:
- DHL Express
- DHL Global Mail
- DHL Global Business Services (as of 1st January 2008)
- DHL Logistics, which is in turn further sub-divided into:
- DHL Global Forwarding (DGF)
- DHL Exel Supply Chain
- DHL Freight & Contract Logistics
History
DHL began as a courier service between
San Francisco and
Honolulu in 1969. In the next few years, they expanded to the Pacific Rim, and
soon to Europe. All US domestic flights were handled by DHL Airways, Inc. which in 2003 was renamed
ASTAR Air Cargo. DHL's first airline still remains with over 550 pilots in service to this day.
1999: Deutsche Post World Net (DPWN) purchased the Dutch shipping company Van Gend & Loos as well as German freight forwarder Danzas.
2001: Deutsche Post acquired a majority (51%) of DHL's shares, and the remaining 49% in 2002. The new DHL was launched by merging the old DHL, Danzas and Securicor Omega Euro Express.
2001: The Packstation, an automated delivery booth, is introduced as a pilot project in Dortmund and Mainz.
2002: Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet, collided with DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757-200 cargo jet, at 35,000 ft over Überlingen, Germany, due to a miscommunication between the pilots of Flight 2937 and Swiss air tradic control. The 69 people aboard the Tupolev (consisting mainly of Russian schoolchildren) and the two pilots of the Boeing were killed.
August 2003: Deutsche Post acquires Airborne Express, and begins to integrate it into DHL. The Airborne Express Airline named ABX Air provides contract ACMI service through 2011.
November 22 2003: DHL shootdown incident in Baghdad: Iraqi insurgents fired an SA-7 "Grail" surface-to-air missile at a European Air Transport Airbus A300 operating on behalf of DHL. The aircraft had taken off from Baghdad airport. The missile struck the left wing, disabling all three hydraulic systems and setting the wing on fire. The plane began a dangerous phugoid (vertical oscillation) but the crew managed to land safely at the airport despite only being able to control the plane by adjusting the engine thrust. No other crew had ever been able to achieve a landing in this fashion, though the crew of United Airlines Flight 232 was able to also navigate their DC-10-10 after a similar triple hydraulic failure that resulted in a crash landing at Sioux City International Airport.
September 2004: a planned expansion by DHL at Brussels International Airport created a political crisis in Belgium.
October 21 2004: DHL announced that it would move its European hub from Brussels to Leipzig, Germany (Vatry, France was considered and rejected). DHL's unions call a strike in response, paralyzing work for a day.
November 8 2004: DHL invests €120 million in Indian domestic courier Blue Dart and becomes the majority shareholder in the company.
September 2005: Deutsche Post made an offer to buy contract logistics company Exel plc, which had just acquired Tibbett & Britten. Exel became part of DHL in December 2005. Following the latest deal, DHL have a global workforce of 285,000 people (500,000 people including DPWN and other sister companies) and roughly $65 billion in annual sales.
September 2006: DHL wins ten year contract worth £1.6 billion, to run the NHS Supply Chain (part of the UK's National Health Service). DHL will be responsible for providing logistics services for over 500,000 products to support 600 hospitals and other health providers in England. As part of this new contract, in 2008 DHL will open a new 250,000 sq ft distribution centre to act as a stock holding hub for food and other products, with another distribution centre opening in 2012. The two new distribution centres will create around 1,000 new jobs.
September 2007: DHL Express co-founds new cargo airline AeroLogic, based at Leipzig/Halle Airport, in a 50:50 joint venture with Lufthansa Cargo. The carrier will operate up to 11 Boeing 777Fs by 2012.
December 2007: DHL becomes the first ever carrier to transport cargo via wind powered ships flying MS Beluga Skysails kites.
Environmental Record
In a mail delivery company, the methods of transportation have immense affects on the environment. The amount of pollution emitted from vehicle transportation alone is a major responsibility for DHL. The revelation of adverse affects has prompted DHL to discuss and implement alternative options that are more conducive for the environment. Their efforts have been outreaching in road to achieving environmentally friendly goals. DHL plans to overcome its negative environmental impacts through its operations on the ground. This is to enhance overall efficient transportation and processes that have qualified them to reach environmental requirements set up by governments.
More intensive measures have been taken to physically control the amount of polluting by use of the alternative fuel examples. They have changed vehicles in certain delivery fleets in accordance to their use of newer fuel ideas. The fuel was switched to compressed natural gas which they hope to accomplish with 50% of their vans. Through their Environmental Management System (EMS), DHL “travels naturally”. The EMS is established to develop DHL’s environment objectives and future.
Online
The domain dhl.com attracted at least 6.8 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.
Animal rights activists
On September 16 2005 DHL won a High Court injunction establishing an exclusion zone around each of its 288 buildings in the UK as well as the homes of its 18,000 UK employees. The firm has been the subject of a campaign of intimidation because of their business with Huntingdon Life Sciences. The judge, Mr. Justice Bean, banned protesters from coming within 50 yards of any DHL premises or the homes of their employees as well as any organized demonstration within 100 yards unless the police had been given four hours notice. The injunction also protects anyone doing business with DHL from intimidation.
Air freight
DHL Aviation, a DHL subsidiary, operates a fleet of more than 70 aircraft providing global air freight services.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Dhl'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://dhl.totallyexplained.com">DHL Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |