Snow and icy conditions have continued to cause delays to parcel deliveries in parts of northernEurope, resulting in the suspension of service-level guarantees of some products in affected areas,
although operators report that the level of disruption has eased since yesterday.Following significant numbers of closures and cancellations yesterday, all of the UK’sairports were open and operational today, with only a handful of flight cancellations, althoughParis was reported to be still experiencing problems.
A spokeswoman for FedEx Express told CEP-Research: “Due to continued snow fall, our Europeanhub at CDG is experiencing some operational delays. As a result, some customers may experience aservice delay throughout the coming days.
“We are committed to providing services to our customers to the best of our abilities andhave put operational contingency plans in place to minimise these delays. We are conducting pickupand delivery operations but we cannot guarantee deliveries on time for all shipments that aredelayed due to the current weather conditions.”
She added: “We are advising customers that we are still making pickups and deliveries to thebest of our ability, but obviously as local conditions allow. We continue to monitor thesituation as it’s changing every day.”
A spokesman for DHL Express said there would be some limited local delays in Europe today topick-ups and deliveries in the areas most affected by fog and snow, but the company’s overallnetwork was functioning fairly normally.
He told CEP-Research: “The weather situation has improved across most of Europe. Theremay be isolated issues with fog or snow affecting pick-up and delivery in individual areas, butthere is nothing major on the radar that threatens to disrupt our operations.”
Despite an improvement overall, UK parcel companies were continuing to experience difficultconditions in some parts of the country.
Royal Mail subsidiary Parcelforce warned that the continued severe weather would have someimpact on deliveries and collections today in many areas of England, Wales and eastern Scotland,although it said all of its drivers were out and delivering where it was safe to do so. “However,we do anticipate issues in rural areas, on higher ground and on side roads in many areas whereaccess is either very difficult or still not possible because of the snow and ice,” the companysaid.
UK integrator hub East Midlands Airport (EMA) has been back operating since reopening at14.00 yesterday, allowing the integrators that use it as a hub to resume normal flight patterns,after having to reroute some flights the previous night.
A spokeswoman for UPS told CEP-Research: “The situation in the UK continues to improve. UPS’sEMA facility has opened again for flights, and is processing volume as normal. UPS continues to doits utmost to ensure affected shipments reach their destination as soon as possible.”
PostNL also reported an improved picture in the Netherlands. A spokesman told CEP-Research: “We had a couple of incidents yesterday where it was not possible to make deliveries due to icyroads, but today it is fine. All the roads are open again.”
TNT Express has meanwhile halved de-icing times for aircraft at its Liege hub. The companyhas put four new de-icing trucks into service, bringing its fleet to ten at the Belgian airport.The four new Vestergaard Elephant Beta vehicles allow TNT Express to de-ice its airplanes nearly 50per cent faster than last winter.
TNT Express said it is now able to de-ice a Boeing 747 aircraft in only two minutes, usingsix trucks simultaneously. Most de-icing operations are performed on the company’s dedicated“de-icing zone”, where three aircraft can be treated simultaneously. De-icing crews undergo severaldays of on-the-job and simulator training.
