DHL introduces new U.S.-Australia flight

Express delivery and logistics service provider DHL recently announced it has rolled out a new United States-Australia flight.

Company officials said that this new, twice-weekly flight will augment transit times into Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, Australia by at least one day, with shipments picked up on Friday being delivered by Monday to each of Australia’s major cities.

“The need for this new flight has been driven by heightened customer demand along this trade lane,” said Mike Parra, SVP and Head of Network Operations for DHL Express Americas, in an interview. “According to the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, the US accounted for 12.5 percent of all imports into Australia in 2011, making it the second largest source of imports overall after China.”

DHL officials said that this new flight will operate between the DHL Americas hub in Cincinnati (CVG) and Sydney and Melbourne, with time-definite delivery services available to Australia metro areas by 9:00 am and 12:00 noon, along with end-of-day service. And they added that the flight returns to Cincinnati via Hong Kong, further expanding capacity for customers shipping from Asia to the Americas.

DHL opened its office in Sydney, Australia in 1992, which subsequently became the headquarters for DHL in Australia. 

Parra also cited various benefits this new flight will provide for DHL customers.

“There are benefits from both a service perspective as well as capacity standpoint,” he explained. “The new flight improves transit times into the major Australian metropolitan areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane by at least one day.  Additionally, the connection will significantly increase DHL capacity between the Americas and Oceania, supporting volume growth from Canada and the U.S. into Australia and New Zealand that is expected to exceed 20 percent in 2012.”

DHL also announced it is using an environmentally-friendly B747-400, which is operated by Polar Air Cargo Worldwide, on this U.S.-Australia route, which has 110 tons of carrying capacity, which will help to accommodate its expected 20 percent gain in volume growth.