DHL US on YouTube

[hvydriver]

>from another board<


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HkXuLgt4ak

[Ausländer]

I find it ironic America conveniently abdicates responsibility for those billion $ annual losses. A business opportunity was given but after 5 years of hemorrhaging money it didn't work out!

What do you think DPWN could have done better?

[hvydriver]

A business opportunity was squandered. DHL began losing money in the US when DPWN took over, and began making decisions that went against the advice of the people who knew what they were doing. DHL people. DPWN couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. I particularly loved when Mullen blamed "inefficient, old a/c, and C container systems" as part of the problem in the US. Five years of operations under their watch, and not one dime spent on fleet modernization, or, as they love to say "streamlining efficiencies" with the airlines. And yet, they are keeping the contractor ground delivery model, which is one of the prime reasons DHL US is in the situation it is in. Whose decisions were those? Oh, that's right. DPWN's. They do know how to corner the market on brand new hubs though. Two in five years abandoned is an outstanding record. There is not a single statement in that YouTube video that is not true.

[gtf]

I mostly agree with you that DHL's problems in the US have a lot to do with their use of contractors for the ground network, although I will add (from personal experience) that some ex-ABX stations were probably just as bad. Many pre-merger DHL customers lost out on service when their business was handed over to an ex-ABX station post merger.

I also agree that it's quite amazing how a company that is so succesful elsewhere (that would be DHL) has managed to ground itself so badly in the US.

But the YouTube video... Some truths, not many, some half-truths, some not-truths and a bit of a xenophobic good-US bad-Germany stench to it...

[Ausländer]

But that's the same old rhetoric hvydriver!

1. What could DPWN have done better to win over the hearts and minds of American customers?
2. How do you imagine spending money on an upgraded fleet of aircraft could have turned a billion $ annual loss into a profit?
3. Why are you surprised DPWN want to keep the ground contractor delivery model and why do you believe they (the ground contractors) are the cause of DPWN's problems?
4. How could keeping the 2 hubs have turned a negative, into a positive profit?

[Donkey497]

Seems a bit unfair to accuse DHL in the video of being the root cause of all the ills of the US housing market.

As GTF says, the video seems more of a xenophobic jet blast than arguments for where the business has gone wrong and a set of reasoned solutions to the problems.

[Best foot forward]

A lot of good dedicated people are losing their livelihoods through no fault of their own. They have a right to feel aggrieved, especially if what they say is true and DP are trying to fix the wrong problem and will not stem the losses but only make them worse.

[boingdrvr]

But that's the same old rhetoric hvydriver!

1. What could DPWN have done better to win over the hearts and minds of American customers?
2. How do you imagine spending money on an upgraded fleet of aircraft could have turned a billion $ annual loss into a profit?
3. Why are you surprised DPWN want to keep the ground contractor delivery model and why do you believe they (the ground contractors) are the cause of DPWN's problems?
4. How could keeping the 2 hubs have turned a negative, into a positive profit?

1) Maintain the integrity of the original DHL couriers (many with twenty years plus service) and not rely on cheap, shady, lowest bidder contractors (Airborne Express model).

2) Seems to work pretty good for FDX and UPS. Oh, and by the way, how's that B757 fleet working out for EAT. If you want, we can take them off your hands and you can go back to that rag-tagged fleet that littered the EBBR ramp in the mid nineties. Would a refleet save a Billion $ a year? Of coarse not. But it sure would save alot of $ in the long run.

3) Surprised doesn't begin to described how we feel. See answer # 1 above.

4) Keeping two hubs ( one in moth balls and the other a hybrid of two loading systems) could not have made a profit. See explanation below.


The situation we're in today could have easily been avoided if DPWN had not purchased AirborneExpress. In doing so they inherited a private, single use airport with an outdated sort totally dedicated to a system no one else in the world uses.

In not buying ABX, DPWN/DHL could have stayed in CVG with it's "purpose built" from the ground up, state-of-the-art sort and revamped it's fleet with modern greener aircraft in a steady and controlled way.

Instead of "buying" market share and trying to live up to the promise of "We will be number three in three" as John Fellows was shouting from the roof tops, DPWN/DHL should have undertaken a program of controlled organic growth.

[hvydriver]

Auslander,

To a degree, yes. Fellows, Dorken, et al have been assigned to the dustbin. However, instead of trying to maintain control over the DHL product, DPWN's answer is to simply turn it all over to UPS. I don't know how it will affect people in Europe, but here, DHL's product will draw down to nothing. It's already happening. Think about it a moment. Which would you rather do:

1. Have a DHL contractor pick up your shipment. Then, it disappears into UPS, gets picked up by another DHL contractor on the other end, who then drops it off at the US Post Office, for the "last mile" delivery. (Seriously, this the plan for many locations in the US.)

2., Or, simply have UPS or FedEx pick up your shipment, scan it into their respective tracking systems, and know where your package is at all times, without it ever changing hands. (I know which method I'll be choosing.)

I fear that the deal being crafted over here between DHL/UPS may also infect the EU. This smells of an eventual merger, or, as Mullen is so fond of comparing it to, "it's like a code-share". I think this is just the opening salvo in the destruction/sell out of DHL globally. I don't want to see that happen. I have some friends from the old DHL days that work in Europe. I'd like for them to get to avoid this kind of nightmare, if at all possible.

As to the video itself, there are no half-truths, etc. in it, and it's certainly not intended to be xenophobic. DHL started as a US company. DPWN is a German company. If some feel that's a "jet blast", I'm amazed.

[boingdrvr]

I trust those accountable managers were made accountable?

accountable?

The only people left holding the bag are us poor schleps. The people that make the decisions always seem to be under cover when the crap hits the fan. Such is our lot in life.