DHL Express recently unveiled its Strategy 2025 putting digitalization, e-commerce and sustainability in focus as it aims to further expand sustainably.
John Pearson, CEO DHL Express, made the announcement at the opening of DHL’s €123 million (US$135 million) state-of-the-art hub at Cologne-Bonn Airport saying the “many new technologies” at its Cologne hub shows the basis of our new Strategy 2025.
“By investing more than €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) annually in technology and infrastructure and by putting the new green logistics center into operation, DHL clearly demonstrates its ambitions,” the international courier said in a statement.
In particular, it noted the ice energy storage system with over 1.3 million liters holding capacity and 18 kilometers of piping that ensures the hub stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter in its facility and the heat pump and solar panels on the roof making it “an entirely emissions-free solution.”
“As the experts in export and import, we can only grow by ensuring top quality, which is why we invest more than a billion euros each year in employee training, infrastructure, and digitalization. The main goal here is to increase our transport and delivery capacity for time-sensitive TDI shipments to meet the ever-growing customer demand in the area of e-commerce. At the same time, we’re continuously improving on process efficiency,” Pearson said, noting that its recent quarterly results “show pretty clearly that we’re on the right track.”
DHL completed the upgrade of its air hub at Cologne-Bonn Airport in August 2019 following a two- year building and renovation phase. In the hub’s 15,000 m2 sorting center, with its 12,000 m2 warehouse and 3,000 m2 office space, several new technologies allow DHL Express to process up to 20,000 shipments per hour on its 2.5-kilometer-long conveyor belt. A number of other additions, including 3D scanners and vacuum lifters, help make life easier for the hub’s 340 employees, who hail from 34 different countries.
“The €123 million (US$135 million) investment in our new hub clearly shows our commitment to the Cologne-Bonn region and ensures the future of a lot of jobs here,” says Detlef Schmitz, Managing Director of the DHL.
“This also makes the hub an even more important part of DHL’s international network. With the new direct route between Hong Kong and Cologne, 28 daily flight movements, and our use of state-of-the-art technologies, we are proud to be contributing – sustainably – to the worldwide growth of DHL Express,” he added.
DHL Express has a presence in over 220 countries and territories. It transports over 400 million shipments per year with 22 hubs worldwide and over 260 dedicated aircraft, 17 partner airlines, and a capacity for over 3,000 flights daily to over 500 airports.
Fleet modernization
“We expect continued growth in the coming years, especially in cross-border e-commerce trade,” says Travis Cobb, EVP DHL Global Network Operations.
“By modernizing our air fleet, we can increase our intercontinental connections and do so with reduced carbon emissions and less fuel consumption. Next year, we will deploy another six brand-new planes from our Boeing order.”
In 2018, DHL announced its plans to add 14 new Boeing 777 aircrafts to its own fleet.
