DHL

A DHL Boeing 757

A DHL 'Sprinter' van

DHL Boat in Venice

DHL Truck in Singapore

DHL boat in Amsterdam, carrying DHL bicycles aboard

DHL is a Deutsche Post company that provides international shipping of documents and freight as well as contract logistics. The company was founded in 1969 by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom, and Robert Lynn; the initials D, H & L of the founders' last names form the company name.

The trio initially provided a courier service between the mainland U.S. and Hawaii and expanded the business from there. In 1998, Deutsche Post began acquiring shares in DHL, finally reaching majority ownership in 2001, and completely purchasing it in 2002. In the UK, Deutsche Post also acquired Securicor Omega.

Overview

DHL's global headquarters are located in Bonn, Germany and London, UK (Exel plc). Headquarters for the Americas (including the USA) are located in Plantation, Florida, while its Asia Pacific headquarters are located in Singapore.

DHL owns its own cargo airline, European Air Transport. It currently operates out of Brussels Airport in Belgium, but is in the process of transferring the bulk of its European air operations to Leipzig, Germany.

Major competitors include FedEx, UPS, TNT, and national post carriers such as US Postal Service and Royal Mail. However, DHL has a minor partnership with the USPS, which allows DHL to deliver small packages to the recipent 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 the ability to offer freight and package shipping service worldwide, to areas such as Iraq and Burma. Also, since it is German owned, it is the only courier that will ship to Cuba or North Korea. [1][2]

In Major League Baseball sponsorship, it is the "Official logistics provider of Major League Baseball" and sponsors the Hometown Heroes.

DHL is organized in four divisions:

• DHL Express
• DHL Global Forwarding
• DHL Exel Supply Chain
• DHL Global Mail.

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, andsoon to Europe. [3]

• 1999 - DHL purchased the Dutch shipping company Van Gend & Loos EuroExpress and merged it with its existing operations in the Netherlands.

• 2001 - Deutsche Post World Net 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.

• 2002 - Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet, collided with a DHL Boeing 757 at 35,000 ft over Überlingen, Germany, due to miscommunication from Swiss air traffic 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.

• November 22, 2003 - DHL shootdown incident in Baghdad: Iraqi insurgents fired an SA-7 'Grail' surface-to-air missile at an 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. [4]

• 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.

• June 2005 - Deutsche Post World Net appointed Mr Stephen Day as Chief Financial Officer of DHL Asia Pacific, and a member of the company's Asia Pacific Management Board. Stephen Day had been with DHL since 1992 and has held a number of senior positions, namely CFO of DHL World Wide Express. Stephen is a seasoned finance executive and long-term DHL-er and prior to joining DHL in 1992 he held senior finance positions in the automotive and banking industries.

• 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 initial centre is expected to be built around the M1/M62 crossover, combining a number of current DHL sites. The two new distribution centres will create around 1,000 new jobs.

Animal rights activists

On 16, September, 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 [5].

Global Facts and Figures

• Number of Employees: around 285,000
• Number of Offices: around 6,500
• Number of Hubs, Warehouses & Terminals: more than 450
• Number of Gateways: 240
• Number of Aircraft: 420
• Number of Vehicles: 76,200
• Number of Countries & Territories: more than 220
• Shipments per Year: more than 1.5 billion
• Destinations Covered: 120,000

See also

• Courier
• Express mail
• Globalization
• Deutsche Post World Net
• Deutsche Postbank
• FedEx (competitor)
• TNT (competitor)
• UPS (competitor)
• USPS (competitor)

External links

Main

• DHL.com - Links to each country's DHL website
• DHL.cz - Link to DHL Express Czech Republic country website
• Deutsche Post (DHL Helper)
• Van Gend en Loos Now known as DHL Koerier Netherlands

Other

• Deutsche Post targeted over Burma link
• DHL Bus program in Toronto
• exdhl.com
• ASTAR MEC (DHL Airways) Labor Talks
• DHL shipping and delivery holidays in the U.S. - Internet Accuracy Project

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