DHL raises Philippines capacity  

MANILA, Philippines —  Logistics giant DHL Express has upgraded the aircraft it uses in serving the Philippine market to meet the growing demand for last-mile delivery across the archipelago.

DHL Express yesterday started deploying an Airbus A330-300 as its dedicated aircraft tasked to transport cargo around the Philippines, particularly in Manila and Cebu.

With the arrival of the A330-300, DHL Express expanded its Philippine operations by 31 percent, given that the aircraft can carry up to 55 tons and will fly 12 times a week.

Prior to this, DHL Express uses an Airbus A300 that can only move 42 tons per flight. Based on the schedule, the A330-300 will operate a route that begins in Hong Kong, then to Manila, then to Cebu, before heading back to Manila and Hong Kong.

DHL Express Philippines country manager Nigel Lockett said the aircraft departs Hong Kong at an earlier schedule compared to the previous timetable. For one, the aircraft lands in Cebu in the morning instead of the evening, allowing cargo bound for Manila to be delivered within the same day.

Further, DHL Express Philippines senior director for operations Promod George said the German multinational may expand its fleet and routes in the country depending on how fast the economy picks up from here on.

“(Expansion is) always something that we look at depending on demand, depending on capacity, depending on routes that we fly for,” George said in an interview with reporters.

On the other hand, DHL Express Philippines head of commercial Eric Queppet said the logistics giant rolled out a price hike for its delivery services in January as scheduled to cover the impact of inflation.

“We are implementing a price increase every January of the year and this is based on inflation in  the market and other costs that are increasing. This is an annual exercise that we are doing across all our customers to cover the costs that we expect to be impacting our business,” Queppet said.

In a study by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Philippines has the highest logistics cost when compared to its Southeast Asian neighbors. In the country, logistics cost accounts for 27.16 percent of sales among manufacturing firms, surpassing Indonesia’s 21.4 percent, Vietnam’s 16.3 percent and Thailand’s 11.11 percent.

Promod said that DHL Express tries to cut its expenses by pursuing various cost-cutting efforts, from deploying fuel-efficient aircraft to streamlining ground operations, to minimize the burden passed on to consumers.

“We make sure that they [operations] are as lean as possible all across the network so that we can manage our costs and cut out any waste,” Promod said.