GLS expects to beat the weeks of heavy snow in Germany, and get the bulk of Christmas parcelsdelivered by Christmas Eve, a senior manager told CEP-Research today.
“We have never experienced anything like this before,” Holger Immen, Managing Director Logistics& Central Services for GLS Germany, said in an interview. Motorway closures in north-westGermany and parts of the Benelux in recent days had critically hit operations, generating backlogsfor all companies and resulting in “dramatic delays”, he said. Poland was also badly affected atpresent.
However, staff are “highly motivated” to get shipments delivered in time for Christmas, thelong-serving manager stressed. The parcel operator’s sub-contractors have taken on more drivers andare working longer to get all the shipments delivered to businesses and consumers across thecountry, he said. Additional weekend deliveries to home addresses were made last weekend but it hadnot been necessary to take on additional sorting staff, however.
“We are doing everything we can so that everything collected today will be delivered on the24th,” Immen said. “But what is collected tomorrow (December 23) will not be delivered on the24th,” he admitted.
GLS currently had peak volumes about 30% higher than the usual monthly average, Immen said. Buthe could not say how much higher this year’s Christmas volumes would be compared to last year.
In Germany, GLS has some 41,500 customers and operates a network of 57 depots and uses about3,700 delivery vans. Across Europe, the parcels specialist uses nearly 17,000 vehicles to deliverto about 220,000 customers. In 2009/10, the group had revenues of €1.7 billion and transported 345million parcels in total.
