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The Most Unusual DHL Deliveries 2024

Our customers may think of DHL in terms of parcels containing their online orders or, in the case of DHL Freight, the delivery of industrial and consumer goods on EUR-pallets. However, we also receive orders that are out of the ordinary. Some seem exotic at first glance, others are of particular humanitarian importance – and they are always a challenge. We have compiled the most exciting special transports from the year 2024 to give you an insight into the logistics business well beyond everyday routine.

Challenges Beyond Logistics Standards

The entire DHL Group makes billions of deliveries worldwide every year. What we move over long and short distances, in distribution and over the last mile around the globe are largely routine deliveries. This is the day-to-day business of the global market leader in logistics, and it is indispensable for keeping global supply chains, the economy, the supply of essential goods, and private consumption up and running.

But every now and then, there are very special transportation requests that provide our colleagues in the driver’s cab, in the logistics centers, or in the planning department with a welcome diversion, but also with special challenges. We look back fondly on such assignments from 2024, which gave us the opportunity to prove that the DHL Group and all its divisions not only deliver excellence in day-to-day operations, but also offer customized solutions for a wide range of very individual transportation needs.

We hope you enjoy our brief review of the most extraordinary 2024 transports.

Birds of Prey or Great Apes: Animal Transport Always Demands Everything

Our look back takes us first to Africa. Here, DHL has made an active contribution to improving the fate of individual animals, but also to protecting entire species.

The Largest Vulture Relocation of All Time

Vultures are essential to healthy ecosystems, but many species are vulnerable or critically endangered. These include the African Cape and White-backed vultures. As part of a large-scale project to restore African vulture populations, a record-breaking animal welfare campaign took place in January 2024. A total of 163 Cape and White-backed vultures were relocated from a reserve near the South African capital of Pretoria to the Shamwari Game Reserve in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.

DHL used two 34-ton trucks and five escort and security vehicles for the more than 1,000-kilometer transport. It was crucial that the 18-hour journey be as stress-free as possible for the rare birds. DHL was assisted by a non-profit organization. 50 volunteers helped load all the vultures onto the vehicles within three hours.

In Shamwari, the vultures now find a safe environment in which they can live and breed undisturbed.

A New Home for the Disabled Chimpanzee Chocolat

The illegal bushmeat trade extends to great apes and is responsible for the tragic fate of Chocolat, a female chimpanzee. In 2001, poachers killed Chocolat’s mother in the Republic of Congo. Chocolat, an infant at the time, was also hit by shotgun pellets, but luckily survived. Since then, she has been paralyzed in one hand and one foot. For more than two decades, she was cared for by her rescuer in Kenya, but now the mature ape needed specialized care in a suitable facility.

One such facility is the Ape Rescue Centre run by the animal welfare organization Monkey World in Dorset, England. In August 2024, the time had come: Chocolat began her journey by flying from Nairobi to East Midlands Airport in England. The journey continued by road to Dorset.

A custom-made crate ensured Chocolat’s safety, and fruit and sweet potatoes were provided for her physical well-being. Animal care experts were also on hand throughout the entire journey to oversee the chimpanzee’s safe arrival. In her new home, Chocolat met six other chimpanzees – she now has a family again, something she had been missing after her time in the wild.

11 Containers of Hope – a Heart Clinic in Motion

Can you deliver an entire hospital? In the case of the world’s first mobile heart clinic, developed by the charity Kinderherzen, this is possible.

In February 2024, DHL sent the heart clinic on its world tour from the German city of Bremen to Zacamil in El Salvador. The mobile hospital allows children with congenital heart defects to receive life-saving surgery in areas of the world where there are no respective facilities. Eleven containers were shipped by sea and land. Within two weeks, the clinic was set up and heart surgeons from various countries began treating young patients free of charge. The mobile clinic remained in El Salvador until May 2024, when DHL transported it to Burundi in East Africa.

A Logistical Symphony – DHL on Tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Musical tours are always a logistical herculean task. This is even more true when a renowned symphony orchestra such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra travels with a large number of valuable and, above all, highly sensitive instruments, as it has done on its tour of Japan in September 2024.

Around 60 priceless instruments, including double basses, cellos, timpani, and a harp, had to be safely transported by air and land from the UK to the Hamamatsu Act City Concert Hall in Japan over a distance of around 9,500 kilometers.

For DHL, this meant meticulous planning. The temperature in the cargo hold had to be kept at a constant 17 to 21 degrees Celsius to prevent the wooden instruments from warping or cracking. Special crates absorbed shocks and vibrations. Despite the tight schedule, all the instruments arrived on time and in perfect condition. After starting in Hamamatsu, the tour continued to Nagoya and Osaka, ending in Tokyo.

Licence to Deliver – On a Logistical Mission from Prague to Vienna

There were two major James Bond events in 2024: the “Bond in Motion” exhibition in Prague and the “007 Action” show in Vienna, 330 km away. To ensure that 007 fans in Vienna were not faced with empty displays, DHL organized the transport of more than 130 iconic props from the world of James Bond in August 2024.

Among the items transported were 27 cars, eight motorcycles, various costumes, and parachutes. DHL also moved the eight-meter-long snowmobile that Pierce Brosnan’s Bond rode in a breakneck chase through an icy landscape in “Die Another Day”. The helicopter that Daniel Craig destroyed in “Spectre” was also part of the shipment. An absolute highlight for all Bond fans was the Aston Martin DB5, one of the most famous cars in film history, which has raced through a total of eight Bond films – from “Goldfinger” (1964) to “No Time to Die” (2021).

To move all this from the Czech to the Austrian capital, DHL deployed 22 trucks, including special car transporters with hydraulic lifting platforms. In terms of weight, James Bond’s driver’s license was probably the easiest item to transport – and still a real gem among the cargo.

Customized Logistics Solutions from DHL Freight

We hope you enjoyed our brief review of last year’s outstanding deliveries. And rest assured: for all our commitment to the extraordinary, we never lose our passion for the day-to-day. Whether it’s a truckload of copy paper or a collection of valuable Ming vases, DHL Freight’s logistics professionals are passionate about the task at hand and will find the fitting solution.

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