Parallel to Bahrain, the Deutsche Post subsidiary DHL wants to utilise Dubai as a hub for express shipments and general cargo in the Middle East. With a dual hub system the often asked “million-dollar question” regarding future operations in the Middle East now is being disclosed, Dave Spargo, DHL’s regional head, told Payload Asia.
The logistics company has been using Bahrain as a central operational site in the Gulf region for 30 years now. The airport there is geographically well positioned with direct access to the neighboring markets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Levant (the region in the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, particularly Lebanon and Syria, but also for Greece, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt), as well as in the United Arab Emirates, the manager pointed out. In addition, the integrator’s regional cargo fleet is stationed there. “We are not going to abandon this site since it offers us many advantages,” Spargo emphasized.
Consequently, DHL will not shift capacity from Bahrain to Dubai. “We will remain committed to using Bahrain as a regional hub, while also boosting expansion of Dubai and using Jebel Ali Airport as an air freight centre for both general cargo and express shipments,” said Spargo.
The reason for doing so is the higher volume of air traffic in Dubai compared to Bahrain – both for passenger traffic and cargo throughput. While the Gulf region so far has primarily been a consumer market dominated by imports, the intra-Middle East trade is developing rapidly, with tremendous market growth exceeding 40 per cent per year.
“The express freight industry is growing at rates between 10 and 15 per cent, particularly due to time sensitive shipments that are increasingly demanded by customers,” Spargo said.
As a consequence, road feeder services within these markets are becoming more important, with DHL now offering an average of 40 truck departures a day at the Bahrain airport. The road feeder network meanwhile spans the entire Arabian Peninsula, including scheduled routes to Cairo and Istanbul.
Sixteen freighters including eight B727Fs supplement the road equipment. They are based in Bahrain because DHL’s intercontinental line haul flights from Leipzig/ Halle, Wilmington, and New York arrive there. After customs clearance and the breaking-up of the pallets the express shipments are loaded on board of the integrator’s regional fleet to transfer them to locations such as Karachi, Kuwait or Jeddah.
DHL now claims a market share in excess of 40 per cent for the whole region between Lebanon and Oman. “It now is paying off that we’ve come to the Middle East quite early and have successively expanded our activities ever since,” Spargo explained. – Heiner Siegmund
