DHL Express has enhanced its services in Finland with the launch of flights between its newgateway at Turku and the European air hub at Leipzig, along with improved road express
services.DHL this week started daily flights between Turku and Leipzig with a Boeing 737, providingcapacity of 16.5 tons and offering the ability to carry heavy and voluminous shipments. Customersin Western and Central Finland in particular would benefit from this faster transport service, thecompany said in a statement. Existing flights between Helsinki and Leipzig continue to servecustomers in Southern, Eastern and Northern Finland.
Meanwhile, flights between Vaasa and Stockholm-Arlanda will be discontinued, changing thedistribution times of import shipments in some areas around Vaasa from late afternoon to the nextmorning after the day of arrival. Export pickup times mainly remain unchanged.
“Since the beginning of August we have routed international road express through our new gatewayterminal in Turku and thus remarkably improved road transit times between Finland and other Nordiccountries, and Continental Europe as well,” said Kenneth Palmgren, managing director of DHL ExpressFinland. “With the new Turku flight we can effectively combine the pickup and delivery network forboth air and road express shipments, for the benefit of our customers.”
Due to the late departure of the new flight, departing for Leipzig at 22:45 from Turku,customers have the entire working day at their disposal for gathering shipments for dispatch.Pickup times will be significantly later since the way to the airport now is shorter. The returnflight from Leipzig arrives in Turku at about 08:30.
During the autumn, the DHL Express 12:00 service will be available in and around Turku. Atpresent this service is only offered in the greater Helsinki area.
DHL said that it had already invested in service upgrades for the road express service DHLEuroplus during the summer. The most important improvement was the opening of the gateway terminalin Turku. The new routing of shipments through Turku has significantly improved the transit times.For example, DHL Express now offers 48h door-to-door transit time between Finland and Sweden:shipment picked up today arrives at the customer the day after tomorrow.
“The new setup enables a shared pickup and delivery network for air and road express. In ourinbound service we can combine road express shipments arriving by the early morning ferry fromSweden and air express from Leipzig to the same linehauls. Also in the outbound service bothshipment flows are joined in the domestic transport to the Turku terminal and then take theirseparate ways forward either by air or by road. The combined domestic network remarkably enhancesour service,” Palmgren concluded.
DHL Express has two air express gateway terminals in Finland, Helsinki and Turku, and domesticterminals in Oulu, Tampere and Vaasa. Road express flows are mainly routed via Turku. According tothe company, it has some 300 employees in Finland.
