DHL International express services announced a new round-the-world flight connecting Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Leipzig. The service includes a greater number of Asian origin locations, including key trade hubs Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Manila and offers a significant number of cities throughout China a next-day connection into Los Angeles and much of Western U.S. and Canada.
Thanks to a new onward connection from Los Angeles direct to DHL’s European air hub in Leipzig, Germany, customers in California including the key cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco will be able to order a pick-up from a DHL courier up to 3 hours later for their European shipments.
Capacity and service reliability on this new route will be supported by the introduction of three Boeing 777F freighters, operated by Southern Air. DHL announced in September 2011 that it had signed a multi-year agreement with Southern Air Holding Inc. to operate B777F freighters on intercontinental routes connecting the Americas, Asia and the Middle East. The first of these round-the-world routes—from Hong Kong to the Express hub in Cincinnati to Bahrain and back to Hong Kong—is already in operation. The additional freighters will bring the total number of B777F freighters in DHL’s global fleet to 12.
“The additional capacity, range and reliability of the Boeing 777F freighters, as well as the increased fuel efficiency they bring to our fleet, will complement the significant investments we have already made in our global network over the last year,” said Ken Allen, CEO of DHL Express.
“The new flight is part of DHL’s operations strategy to improve our network infrastructure and add capacity,” added Stephen Fenwick, regional CEO for DHL Express Americas. “In the Americas, the recently announced $47 million expansion of DHL’s super-hub in Cincinnati and the expansion of our gateway in Miami will allow us to process the increasing amount of heavy-weight cargo we’re seeing.”
The B777F freighter is expected to burn around 20 to 25 percent less fuel, in keeping with DHL’s commitment to increase its carbon efficiency by 30 percent in 2020.
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