Internet impacts on air freight

By Tom Clarke

A huge growth in postal courier services because of the Internet, is being predicted by international air express specialist Neil Henderson.

He has become general manager transport for New Zealand Post, after 22 years with DHL Worldwide Express where he held senior management positions in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Mr Henderson says the growth in Internet purchasing by both corporates and individuals, will result in huge growth for companies such as New Zealand Post, and more specifically its division CourierPost.

"The trend is already evident in the United States and my experience is that it will be followed by Europe, New Zealand and Australia, with Asia likely to be further behind," he says.

"The penetration of the Internet is very high in New Zealand by international standards, so more and more people will be using it in future."

Mr Henderson says United States-based Amazon Books is a classic example. Kiwis are buying from Amazon and they want to get their books delivered quickly. At the moment delivery is usually via air express companies such as Fedexpress, UPS and DHL, but he believes that will change with courier postal services becoming the major player.

The necessary international alliances already exist to make that happen, and some postal organisations are now starting to get involved in those deliveries.

CourierPost International has a reciprocal alliance with DHL, where parcels are picked up here by CourierPost, branded with the CourierPost International brand, and delivered overseas by DHL. Overseas postal organisations are buying into air express companies in anticipation of the development, with German Post buying about 25 per cent of DHL and Dutch Post buying TNT's express business.

He will not be drawn on New Zealand Post's plans for CourierPost, but says that some developments are in the pipeline.

Despite the explosive growth of the Internet and the fact that commercial organisations and individuals are increasingly communicating and sending documents using e-mail, Mr Henderson says there has been no reduction in the rate of increase in document handling by postal organisations. He predicts there will be an impact at some stage in the future, however.

"For the last 15 years at DHL we were saying that we must start reducing our growth estimates for documents, and yet they continue to grow by about 8 per cent in shipment terms a year," he says.

"Parcels were growing at about 20 per cent a year.

Mr Henderson believes that people still like to post a hard copy, despite the fact that they are communicating via the Internet.

Mr Henderson was recently in Manila with DHL, where he was responsible for developing and implementing DHL's Asia overnight courier air network.

As general manager transport for New Zealand Post, he will be responsible for truck and aircraft transport operations, focusing on ensuring its transport system is equipped to handle CourierPost's expected 20 per cent plus annual growth.

He replaces Steve Gill who was recently appointed general manager of CourierPost.