Gateway to Africa

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DHL Freight Iberia is relying on several pillars to assert itself in the difficult market environment in south-western Europe. With six terminals, DHL Freight Iberia covers an area of 583,000 square kilometres, where approximately 53 million people live. Roughly 190,000 trips a year begin or end at one of these hubs, where 1,523,000 tons of goods were transported last year. From here, DHL Freight serves destinations in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and the neighbouring countries. The business with North Africa has lately become particularly important. “The market on the Iberian peninsula provides great opportunities across borders, primarily in northern Africa, due to its geographical location on the south-western tip of Europe. This is where the cargo routes to Morocco are particularly important”, explains Santiago Mariscal, Managing Director of DHL Freight Iberia.

Two pillars

The transit business is firmly anchored in one of the two main pillars of DHL Freight Iberia, the Terminal-Based Operations (TBO). The hubs in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Irún, Porto and Lisbon have a total area of 22,800 square meters. They serve to connect the Iberian peninsula and ultimately North Africa to the European line network. All stock transfers and storage are carried out via these sites.
But DHL Freight Iberia also has a second strong pillar, namely Direct Contract Carriage (DCC). With these point to-point connections, DHL Freight Iberia operates the fleets for individual customers and at the same time has the opportunity to fill up spare capacity with cargo from the normal line of business. And if the capacity of a customer's own fleet is not sufficient, DHL Freight can react particularly quickly and select a service provider from its own, quality-tested pool of partners. This avoids long searches for suitable carriers in overload situations.

Pharmaceutical specialist

In addition to these main pillars of the business, DHL Freight Iberia is also active in several other areas. A special emphasis is currently being placed on the expansion of the FarmaFreight services for the transport and intermediate storage of pharmaceutical and bio-medical goods. For this purpose, DHL Freight Iberia has created its own competence centre that complies with high temperature and safety standards.
Quality is a top priority at DHL Freight Iberia. And it can only be achieved with rested drivers. That is why drivers have a designated driver’s corner at their disposal in every terminal for rest and recuperation.
Long-time customers benefit from the Club Freight programme that rewards loyalty with various bonuses: from discounts to special service offerings.
For the future, the focus will be placed on the expansion of connections to North Africa, as well as further cost optimization and improved service. And ultimately this also includes the establishment of an own customs department in order to settle cross-border deliveries as soon as possible, and to give customers a time advantage. Combined with the further optimization of processes in collaboration with colleagues in the surrounding countries, DHL Freight Iberia will continue to be the trailblazer for logistics in south-western Europe in the future too.