GLS, the Royal Mail parcels subsidiary, is to enter the European air express market, CEO RicoBack told CEP-Research. It will set up an airline subsidiary “GLS Air”, and compete with DHL, TNT
and UPS at lower prices. The parcels carrier currently transports the bulk of its Europeanconsignments by road or on commercial flights.“GLS will start to develop its own air service network for express deliveries in spring 2006,”Back stated. “The aim is to strengthen and extend GLS’ position in the European express market.”The parcels carrier plans to develop an air network based around “European areas” that would beinter-connected.
The new subsidiary, GLS Air, will be formed on May 1. The first flights will be in June and willconnect Germany and the UK, Back said. There will be weekday jet services between Kassel, close toGLS’ main hub at Neuenstein, and Coventry. The following routes would be between Kassel and Parma(northern Italy), and Kassel and Budapest.
“In the years to come, the number of GLS aircraft will be increased to about 25,” Backdisclosed. “The advantages of using our own aircraft are above all flexibility and speed, but alsoless costly handling of the express shipments.” No figure for the airline investment was given, nordetails of the airline operation.
With its own air network, GLS would be able to extend its time-certain and guaranteed deliveryproducts, and broaden the catchment areas for its overnight delivery service. A parcel collected by18:00 in Germany, for example, could thus be delivered in the UK on the next day.
GLS has meanwhile taken a major step towards harmonising the product and service portfolio ofits European subsidiaries by introducing common names throughout the group. Under a “NamingConvention”, the GLS portfolio has been divided into products, services and solutions (logistics)with a common name for each product, service or solution. Ten companies are currently implementingthe new names, and others will follow later this year.
“Our customers expect a clearly structured and standardised product and service range that caninclude special regional features but should generally be independent of the location where theservice is rendered”, Back explained. “This is why our objective is to have an identical nationaland cross-border product and service portfolio that can be extended by country-specific offers.”& amp; amp; lt; /p>
The GLS (General Logistics Systems) network comprises subsidiaries and partner companies in 34European states, with 29 central transhipment points, 667 depots and 14,500 people. Some 17,700vehicles are on route moving 280 million parcels annually for 220,000 customers throughout Europe.In the financial year 2004/2005, GLS achieved revenues of €1.34 billion.
