DHL just opened its $175 million Express North Asia Hub at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Covering a land area of 105,000 square yards, the facility is the biggest express hub in Asia. DHL plans to invest another $132 million to add eight dedicated aircraft to service high demand routes between Shanghai and North Asia, Europe and the U.S. by 2014. The planned flights will be operated by partner and equity-held airlines: Polar Air, Aerologic, and DHL Air UK. There will be a variety of other providers as well.
"With Asia’s leading economies fast integrating and free trade agreements reducing barriers to international commerce, logistics companies need capabilities that are ahead of the curve and offer simplicity, speed and service,” said Dr. Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL.
The North Asia Hub was designed to process up to 20,000 documents and 20,000 parcels an hour. Environmental sustainability features include energy efficient T5 lighting and a solar-powered system for hot water. The hub’s sorting system is also designed to automatically detect components that are not in use and switches them to an energy-saving “sleep” mode until they are needed again.
Building on existing direct connections between the DHL Express North Asia Hub in Shanghai to Hong Kong, Osaka, Tokyo, and DHL’s global hubs in Leipzig and Cincinnati, the planned investments in the next two years will also include new connections between Shanghai to East Midlands, UK.
DHL further plans to increase capacity on routes between the DHL Express North Asia Hub and other cities in China and Taiwan. Over the next few months, DHL will add direct connections to Incheon, Taipei and Chinese cities such as Dalian and Qingdao, with Beijing and Xiamen likely to come on stream in 2013.
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