What effect do they have on the future of the "Duopoly". Are they a non-player, or are they the next valujet of the freight business? My impression is that they had a favorable ruling in the pending lawsuit.

Cheers

 

It's not a matter of the favorable ruling in court. They're screwing the pooch on their own. They spent millions building their mega-sort in Cinci. These millions proved to be useless as there were a number of times that the entire system crashed. As a result of this, they decided to move all of their operations to ABX's home. They haven't won any fans with late deliveries and lost packages.

I hope what I think doesn't come true. I had the pleasure of working with both Astar and ABXair crews at a former job and they were all nice guys that gave lots of good advice to me as I was going through college and trying to get a grasp on this industry.

 

Ok, I will bite. What lawsuit and who or whom is "Duopoly"?

 

I assume the "duopoly" Worldguy refers to is FedEx/UPS. I have no guesses as to what lawsuit he means.

As far as the "valujet" comment goes, I do know that DHL is not interested in being a "low fare carrier" of freight. Of course they all compete on price (especially for the big contracts), but DHL's stated intention has been to offer comparable service at comparable pricing levels.

 

This will be a good start for your googling activities! http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnat...14/story4.html

 

That particular article is from 4 years ago, prior to the buyout of Airborne and spinoffs of Astar/ABX, but the citizenship issue is probably what Worldguy was referring to. I know FedEx/UPS also challenged citizenship after the buyout but as far as I know those challenges have run their course for now. I wasn't aware that there were any citizenship challenges or lawsuits "pending". Both FedEx and UPS want more access to Europe and challenging DHL America's citizenship appeared to be part of that strategy.

 

I believe the lawsuit involves a law something like you cannot legally carry US mail or packages if you are based in another country, as DHL is by some accounts. I think UPS and Fedex both were going after them. I could be wrong though, not real educated on that topic...

 

It involved a law which prohibits a foreign corporation from owning more than 25% of the voting equity of a U.S. air carrier. The issue is control. A foreign entity is not permitted under U.S. law to control a U.S. carrier. Fedex's Fred Smith persuaded Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to attach a rider to a bill forcing the DOT to hold "de novo" (sp?) hearings on the issue. This is a latin term used in law meaning "new". The hearings, which had to be held in front of an administrative law judge, challanged the right of the former DHL Airways (which be the time the hearings began had changed ownship and its name to Astar Air Cargo) to hold an U.S. air carrier certificate and its right to operate in the U.S. The judge ruled in Astar's favor. Little known is the fact a similar suit was filed against ABX Air, Inc, the now publically held former wholly owned subsidiary of Airborne, Inc. The suit against ABX became moot when UPS/Fedex lost against Astar.

 

OPINION ONLY

I think one of the things holding up DHL from doing much is thier contracting of the Courier ops at each station. The few things I have tried to get via DHL never made it. PAckage showed up at the Station, they said they tried to deliver it, and then it went back. No missed delievery slip, no phone call. I even called asking about it, they said it was at the station. I said hold it, I'll pick it up. Gone by the time I got there. It doesn't take many complaints like this to the shipper, esp a big one, to lose business.

The above has nothing to do with the flying ops, but I think its the weak link in their system.

 

I agree with HoursHore, the local delivery drivers are a huge problem for DHL/Astar/ABX in the US. They sub-contract the actual delivery of packages to local companies that hire the employees and provide the vans to make deliveries. They arent DHL employees. Here's a funny story: Years ago, my office was across the street from the former world HQ of Fedex. As it is in many "office park" locations, the name of the street that they were on is very simillar to the name of the one we were on. Our building number was the same as FedEx's. I had a customer that requested that we ship something to them via AirborneExpress, on their account number. We didnt have any waybills or other supplies, so we called Airborne to get some and they shipped them out. A few days went by, and we didnt get the supplies. I called Airborne to see what the problem was. They told me it had been delivered. At the time, we were a three person office, so I knew that it hadnt been delivered to us, so I asked them who signed for the package. They responded with a name that I had never heard before, so I asked them the address that they had delivered it to. They gave me the address of the FedEx building across the street. So, I walked over to ask them about it. This building had a pretty substantial security operation in the lobby, so when I walked in, they politely asked how they could help me. I asked them if they had taken delivery of some Airborne Express supplies. They said they had, and had been wondering why Airborne would want to ship waybills and whatnot to FedEx.

I collected my supplies and left...