DHL Express has strengthened its presence in western France with the official opening of a newdepot close to Nantes.
The new depot at Saint-Aignan-de-Grand-Lieu, covering 1,650 sqm of operating space and 200sqm of office space, is a key site in DHL’s air express network in western France and two timeslarger than the previous depot. The company invested about €2 million in 2008 in the relocationworks.
The 52 staff handle about 15 tonnes of imports and 10 tonnes of exports per day on average,including 12 air containers with imports and 10 with exports. The new depot is linked to the DHLExpress air network via a daily B757 flight operating between the Leipzig air hub, Nantes andBordeaux.
Last year, the local branch generated a turnover of €20 million, the company said in astatement. Employees are responsible for some 800 clients from the technology, food, textile,automobile and pharmaceutical industry in the region.
“This new site is part of the strengthening of our network in France, in which we investedmore than €15 million in 2008”, said Florence Noblot, Managing Director of DHL InternationalExpress France. “With this new organisation bound to the opening of our European sorting centre atLeipzig, Germany, we provide our customers a high performance network covering regional integrityfor national and international express deliveries.”
Jean Charles Lelay, Depot Manager at Saint-Aignan-de-Grand-Lieu, said that the new depotcould work more efficiently than the previous one and was, for example, equipped to gain timeduring the handling of parcels. The 80-metre sorting system can handle up to 1,000 parcels an hour.
As a whole, DHL‘s French air express business has about 1,500 staff, 30 depots and 800delivery vehicles. It is linked to the international air network with 12 planes making 26 dailyflights. All DHL France activities combined, including Global Forwarding, Freight and Supply Chain,generate revenues of some €2 billion.
