DHL Express invests €170 million in massive Paris air hub expansion
DHL Express has announced its largest-ever investment in France with plans to spend €170 million on a new regional air hub at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport that will increase its capacity dramatically amid surging e-commerce volumes and will speed up its transit times.
Philippe Prétat, CEO of DHL Express France, told a media briefing in Paris yesterday: “As a leader in international express transport, we must rise to the challenges presented by the increase in international trade and the explosion of e-commerce. This new DHL Express investment will accelerate this development in France.
“France is at the crossroads of trade, which is why we are committed to providing the country with solid infrastructure to strengthen the efficiency of the network, offer exemplary quality of service to our customers and the best working conditions to our employees,” he declared.
Capacity for 15x more parcels per hour
Due to go into operation in October 2021, the new facility will increase DHL’s capacity dramatically compared to its present terminal at France’s top cargo airport, enabling it to cope with rapidly increasing volumes, especially e-commerce parcels.
Between 500 and 600 staff will work at the new 34,000 sqm CDG hub, which will include a €45 million ultra-modern sorting system able to process 38,000 parcels per hour. This is 15 times more than at the present site.
The new hub, located south of the CDG runways in Cargo Zone 7, will also meet strict environmental criteria designed to limit CO2 emissions and will have parking positions for aircraft.
Construction work for the new facility, which lies on a 91,000 sqm plot of land, began in March this year. The site has sufficient available land so the hub can be expanded in future if necessary.
Key role in international air network
The new CDG hub will also play a key role in the express operator’s more decentralised European air network in future. It will have flight connections with the European air hub in Leipzig, the regional hubs in East Midlands (UK), Brussels and Bergamo (Italy) as well as with Bordeaux and Casablanca in Morocco.
“The DHL Express hub at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport will play a decisive role in our international network. It is one of our 23 hubs around the world, including 12 in Europe,” Prétat underlined.
In addition, there will be road connections to northern and western France as well as surrounding countries.
Faster deliveries in Paris
Moreover, the new hub will enable DHL Express to speed up transit times through CDG and to offer faster deliveries in the French capital and the surrounding region.
Prétat explained: “Our customers rely on us to provide express transport for their packages and our teams work hard every day to meet their expectations, whether in terms of deadlines, reliability or respect for the environment. For our customers in Ile-de-France (the region around Paris), the new Paris-Charles de Gaulle site represents in particular a time saving of 45 minutes on deliveries and collections!"
E-commerce drives France growth
The CDG expansion follows €65 million worth of investments to increase capacity in the company’s French network over the last five years amid a “spectacular” increase in volumes.
DHL Express, which sees itself as the French international market leader with a 37% market share, expects to process more than 41 million packages at its 55 sites across France this year. This would be about 5% more than last year despite the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on business.
After a 2.7% drop in volumes between March and June, the company generated an 8.9% increase in July and August and expects a rise of more than 10% in the second half of the year, it noted.
E-commerce is the clear growth driver for DHL Express in France. Its B2C parcel volumes have grown rapidly from an insignificant 2% share back in 2010 to 38% last year and upwards to an expected 50% share this year following dramatic increases during the lockdown period earlier this year.
DHL Express France expects to return to its recent average annual growth rate of about 8% a year in the next five years (2021-25). By 2025, B2C deliveries could make up 55-60% of its total volumes in France, according to the company.
