PRESS RELEASE
In
today’s competitive global environment, the use of logistics companies
to courier items between countries within set time parameters is
becoming increasingly necessary. Throughout Africa, the capabilities of
logistics companies have also evolved exponentially over the past 20
years and it is today increasingly common to see ‘packages’ such as live
animals, specially prepared food or lifesaving medicines being
transported across the continent.
Looking back on the past year, Sumesh Rahavendra, Head of Marketing for DHL Express Sub-Saharan Africa ,
says that the increase in requests to transport various endangered
animals was particularly noteworthy, as well as some unique personal
client requests.
A
particularly unusual personal request came from Nigeria, whereby a
client also paid the airfare of an onboard courier to travel with a
birthday cake from Abuja to Lagos; the airfare price of which was about
three times the value of the cake. The client put a significant premium
on the need to have the cake delivered at a particular period of the day
and was prepared to pay for it.
During
2012 an entire prepared five-course dinner for eight people for a
function in Zimbabwe was transported. This was due to certain foods not
being available in the country.
The
company also regularly transports various types of medical materials,
using specialized products and processes to ensure their viability.
“Increasingly,
we see the need for cross-border and continental transportation of
items like rare tissue samples, urgent medical equipment or organs,”
says Rahavendra. We have dedicated people who manage these types of
shipments – whether it’s ensuring a heart is transported from Europe to
Kenya for an urgent transplant, a part for an important medical scanner
is rushed across the world to fix that machine or, as I personally saw
recently, some tissue samples were carried from South Africa to the USA
for an operation to save a little boy named Juan with a rare
degenerative disease.”
Rahavendra
also explained: “A highlight in 2012 was moving three endangered Black
Rhinos from the UK to the Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania. The
10-hour journey from Manston, UK airport to Tanzania included a
refuelling stop in Italy and took place aboard a specially outfitted
Boeing 757. Special accommodation included specialised life-saving
devices and temperature-controlled conditions in the cabin, and the
transport team included two rhino keepers, two aircraft engineers and a
specialist veterinarian. “It’s very special that we can use our core
capability of logistics to support such valuable conservation efforts,”
says Rahavendra.
On
a global front, DHL also recently delivered two Sumatran tigers, one
from the USA and one from Australia, to take part in an international
breeding program. With fewer than 300 Sumatran tigers now in the wild,
ZSL London Zoo is hoping to breed the tigers as part of a wider
conservation support program and enlisted the help of DHL Express to
transport the tigers.
He
explains that although the company has fulfilled many strange delivery
requests and transports everything from lions to livers, there are
certain restrictions when it comes to global express. “We work with
customs and authorities in over 220 countries worldwide and each of
these have different regulations around the products you can import and
export, and restrictions around certain items,” he says. “This means we
can’t courier everything ‘at all costs’ and have restrictions on items
like jewellery, precious metals, firearms and ammunition, as well as
specific embargoes on products in certain countries.”
These
restrictions are also in place to protect the company’s network, and
general civilians. “We move hundreds of millions of packages every year
and, with this, comes a need for incredibly tight security. While we
use our own dedicated network of 250 aircraft and over 30, 000 vehicles
to move shipments, we also sometimes make use of commercial airlines
which carry passengers. Outside of ensuring our own operational network
is safe through scans, physical checks, cameras, security personnel and
the myriad of other measures we take every day, we are also responsible
for the wellbeing of our customers and general consumers, and we take
this responsibility incredibly seriously.”
Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of Deutsche Post DHL.
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