Ahmed Al-Khafaji and Christian Digby from the terminal in Malmö (Sweden) and Lennart Macke from Langenhagen (Germany) can take a lot of the credit for those presents under the Christmas tree. They make sure thousands of items reach retailers and end customers.
It’s noon in Malmö. Ahmed Al-Khafaji starts his shift at the DHL Freight terminal. It’s loud, the large sorting system for parcels the so-called sorter stands out in the middle of the terminal. Freight not only supplies business customers in Sweden, but also delivers parcels directly to end consumers. They are being prepared for this here in Malmö, among other places.
Al-Khafaji moves back and forth in the terminal. The colleagues in his team take turns at the various stations: Feeding the sorting system with parcels, loading shipments into roll containers and then into trucks.
No peak season without Freight
Little by little, the mountains of parcels get higher. Each hour, there are 7,000-10,000 shipments, which arrive by truck and leave the terminal the same way. The sorter is filled at eight infeed stations and sorts the parcels by destination region. Some of them remain in Malmö to be delivered directly.
Peak season at DHL Freight usually starts a little earlier than for colleagues who deliver to private customers. Freight also ensures that online retailers’ stores and warehouses are full for the big rush before Christmas or on shopping days such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. A whopping 70,000 shipments in one day. This was the peak value that Ahmed Al-Khafaji and his colleagues worked on last year. “We all want to break our record. We’re really excited about it,” he says.
Planning the high season
Meanwhile in Langenhagen near Hanover (Germany). Lennart Macke works at Euronet, a subsidiary of DHL Freight. And he is preparing for another peak season: that of Post & Paket Deutschland. Euronet handles transportation between the 38 parcel centers from three locations.
Macke is a forwarding manager and makes sure that everything is ready for these trips. Although they take place all year round, the volumes here also skyrocket during busy periods and this needs to be well planned. He and his 30-strong team are responsible for 14 of the parcel centers. The region in Germany stretches from the Ruhr area in the west to Neumünster in the north.
“Preparations for peak season have basically been underway since the beginning of the year, when we purchase capacities like journeys from various freight forwarders.” It will start at the beginning of October, and from November the parcel centers will be running at full capacity until Christmas. Just like the dispatchers in Langenhagen.
500,000 parcels per day are not uncommon in heavy traffic. Macke has to provide 250 swap bodies also known as containers for this. These are loaded at the parcel center, sealed, loaded onto the trucks and off they go to the next parcel center. The whole process takes place at night. The parcels are on the highway from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. before they are sorted further on arrival at the next parcel center. On the weekends, an additional 12 trains are deployed plus another 20 during the peak season bringing capacity up to more than 1,500 swap bodies.
“We have to check whether the expected orders match the available capacities,” he explains. And it’s not just about full trucks that leave on time. The main aim is to ensure that there are always enough vehicles available at every location and that as few empty vehicles as possible are driving through Germany. Macke is constantly reassembling this huge puzzle. To maintain an overview, colleagues at the Langenhagen site share their thoughts in the performance dialog sometimes even twice a day. Communication is important, including with customers and the logistics service providers who supply the trucks and drivers.
And one thing is certain: Without colleagues like Lennart Macke and Ahmed Al-Khafaji and there would probably be fewer presents under the Christmas tree, online orders would not find their way to customers and the stores would also be a little emptier. All of them make peak season, the busiest time of the year for DHL, possible in the first place. And one or two of them might even break a record along the way!
E-commerce is an important part of our network and is set to become even more important in future. With our new services, we’re ready.
Christian Griesshaber, COO, DHL Freight
E-COMMERCE IN SWEDEN
The DHL eCommerce division has been part of DHL Freight in Sweden since 2024. But Freight was already transporting e-commerce shipments before then. The sector continues to grow and the special feature in Sweden: Freight also delivers to private households like the parcel service in Germany.
