DHL Stays with ABX
12/15/2008

Traffic World Staff

DHL Express, unable to reach an early agreement to switch its air linehaul services in the United States to UPS, will continue to use ABX Air aircraft for its scaled back services in the United States through at least next June.

ABX Air parent Air Transport Services Group announced the extended agreement with DHL late Friday as it disclosed deep cutbacks coming Jan. 4 in the express network it operates for DHL out of a base in Wilmington, Ohio.

ABX will cut 1,900 jobs at that time, including 1,000 at the Wilmington hub, as DHL undertakes its withdrawal from U.S. domestic service. It will also include dropping all the DC-9 narrowbody freighters ABX operates for DHL in the United States by the end of January.

But Joe Hete, president and CEO of ABX parent ATSG, said DHL will not switch as earlier announced to UPS for the scaled down intercity services it still needs to move international packages between gateways and pickup and delivery points. "DHL has indicated that it wants ABX Air to continue operating most of our Boeing 767 aircraft currently flying under the DHL contract, at least through June 2009," Hete said in a statement.

DHL had said it hoped to reach an agreement with UPS by the end of this year. A UPS spokesman said the negotiations are still going on, however. "We never set a deadline for an agreement - they did," said spokesman Norman Black. "We remain in negotiations and we remain hopeful of reaching an agreement."

Traffic World OnLine - Air & Parcel

At least until June is what I was told weeks ago. We will see what happens after that point.

From our Union Blast Mail... 12/15

UPS Confirms DHL Negotiations Ongoing

UPS confirmed today that its negotiations with DHL concerning an air service agreement are ongoing despite published reports casting doubt on the viability of the talks. Also on Friday, Joe Hete, president and CEO of ABX parent company ATSG, announced that ABX would continue to provide air service to DHL thru at least June. In previous meetings with the IPA, UPS indicated that the earliest DHL volume could be integrated into the UPS system would be June-July 2009.

In response to the report that appeared today in Traffic World, UPS would only say that it is “continuing its negotiations with DHL to provide line-haul services in the United States for DHL’s international package volume. There is no deadline for concluding these talks. UPS remains hopeful that these talks will be successful."

...DHL had said it hoped to reach an agreement with UPS by the end of this year. A UPS spokesman said the negotiations are still going on, however. "We never set a deadline for an agreement - they did," said spokesman Norman Black. " (emphasis added) We remain in negotiations and we remain hopeful of reaching an agreement."...

It would appear DHL wants to conclude an agreement, or not, not drag on negotiations indefinately. The uncertainty created by the prolonged negotiations doesn't benefit DHL. It does benefit UPS.

So were we. November 10th I believe. This is first time I've seen it in print though.

DHL is parking the 727s and the other aircraft will operate for another year before they get parked...sux

So what does that mean for Astar??????

DONE...a bud is a pilot manager at astar and his flying is done on the 727...the other aircraft will operate for about a year..the 727 guys will be paid via the contract thru 2010(hopefully)...best of luck to those guys

True, or they want to free up their hands some more... From what I heard a possible DHL-FDX agreement is in the works as we speak (type )...

Also to be fair, a while back UPS said that the earliest they could incorporate DHL cargo into our system would by in June of next year so maybe nothing really has changed?


2009 will be an interesting year for all of us...