DHL is to invest $108 million to expand its Americas hub at Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Airport, to cope with rising volumes of international e-commerce and global trade.
It will provide more gates for additional aircraft, warehouse space and new equipment to provide more capacity for sorting shipments and loading and unloading. DHL says the expansion at Cincinnati airport (see picture, provided by Wikipedia user Nebraska12) should be completed by the end of 2016. The company says this will bring its total investment in Cincinnati to $280 million since DHL started operations there in 2009.
DHL Express Americas chief executive officer (CEO), Stephen Fenwick, says: “The expansion and service enhancements from this investment will provide additional infrastructure and efficiency. This in turn will support the continued growth in international shipments that we’re seeing.” In the first quarter of 2015, the DHL Group’s net profit fell to 495 million euros ($541.3 million) from 502 million euros during the same period of 2014. This is despite revenue increasing from 13.5 billion euros to 14.7 billion euros in the first quarter of 2015. DHL’s airfreight revenue increased by 11.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2015 to 1.3 billion euros.
Airfreight volumes increased by 0.3 per cent to 935,000 tonnes in the first quarter of 2015 from 932,000 tonnes for the same period of 2014. For DHL Global Forwarding as a whole, revenue increased by 7.6 per cent to 3.8 billion euros in the first quarter of 2015.
When announcing its first quarter results, DHL launched its Strategy 2020, which it says focuses on three areas. The areas are described as, a focus on existing strengths, enhanced quality through improved interconnectedness and expansion through new growth drivers. DHL CEO, Frank Appel, says the company is to focus on e-commerce. He says: “We want to be the global market leader in logistics for e-commerce.”
This year, DHL announced it was to invest 114 million euros in a hub at Brussels Airport, capable of handling 39,500 shipments per hour. In March, it revealed plans for a South Asia hub at Changi Airport. The Changi facility will cost 85 million euros, will be capable of handling 14,000 shipments an hour and should be operational by the first quarter of 2016.
