DHL Upgrades Express Service Network in Finland

• New flight between Turku and Leipzig
• Road Express Routing via Turku Improves Transit Times
• Combined Domestic Network for Air and Road Express

Vantaa, Finland, 16 September 2008: DHL, the world's leading express and logistics company, continuously invests in its network capabilities in order to secure market-leading services. On 15 September, DHL started daily flights between Turku/Finland and Leipzig, DHL's European Air Hub, which means faster transport services for customers in Western and Central Finland. The flight between Helsinki and Leipzig continues to serve customers in Southern, Eastern and Northern Finland.

"Since the beginning of August we have routed international road express through our new gateway terminal in Turku and thus remarkably improved road transit times between Finland and other Nordic countries, and Continental Europe as well. With the new Turku flight we can effectively combine the pickup and delivery network for both air and road express shipments, for the benefit of our customers," says Kenneth Palmgren, Managing Director, DHL Express Finland.

The new flight arrives in Turku at 8:30 and departs for Leipzig at 22:45. The Boeing 737 has a capacity of 16.5 tons and can carry also heavy and voluminous shipments.

Especially customers of Western and Central Finland will benefit from the new flight. Due to the late departure the customers have the entire working day at their disposal for gathering shipments for dispatch. The pickup times will be significantly later since the way to the airport now is shorter. During autumn, deliveries before noon - DHL EXPRESS 12:00 service - will be available in and around Turku. At present this service is offered in greater Helsinki area.

At the start of the new connection, the DHL Express flight between Vaasa and Arlanda will be discontinued. Due to the change some areas in Vaasa district, which have been served in the late afternoon on the day of arrival, will get their import shipments the next morning instead. In export the pickup times mainly remain unchanged.

During summer, DHL has invested in service upgrades for the road express service DHL EUROPLUS. In Finland, the most important improvement was the opening of a gateway terminal in Turku. The new routing of shipments through Turku has significantly improved the transit times. For example, DHL Express now offers 48 h door to door transit time between Finland and Sweden: shipment picked up today arrives at the customer the day after tomorrow.

"The majority of our road express clients now has better service times in both import and export. For our customers in the major cities of Western and Central Finland we have been able to cut off an entire day of the total transit time," Kenneth Palmgren says.

"The new setup enables a shared pickup and delivery network for air and road express. In our inbound service we can combine road express shipments arriving by the early morning ferry from Sweden and air express from Leipzig to same linehauls. Also in the outbound service both shipment flows are joined in the domestic transport to the Turku terminal and then take their separate ways forward either by air or by road. The combined domestic network remarkably enhances our service," Kenneth Palmgren concludes.

DHL Express has two air express gateway terminals in Finland - Helsinki and Turku - and domestic terminals in Oulu, Tampere and Vaasa. Road express flows are mainly routed via Turku. DHL Express has some 300 employees in Finland.

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Media Inquiries:

DHL Express Finland

Kenneth Palmgren, Managing Director

Tel.: +358 40 583 5605

E-Mail: kenneth.palmgren@dhl.com