In mid-June, a group of journalists from around the world was invited by Deutsche Post DHL to tour the new transshipment hub in Leipzig. A representative of our portal’s editorial team was also on-site. Below, we present a short report from our stay at the hub, as well as a video showcasing the operations of one of the world’s largest transshipment centers.
We began our visit to one of the world’s largest hubs at 9:00 PM. At the entrance, we were greeted by airport security, who asked us to leave our passports at the reception. The next step was to proceed to the area where we underwent security screening alongside the DHL Express employees starting their shifts. Just like at an airport, each of us went through a bag scanning procedure and a metal detector. After passing through the gate, we found ourselves in the social and office area of the sorting facility, where nearly 70 people work daily. There are rest rooms and a center monitoring the operation of the entire hub. Most operations performed at the central DHL hub take place at night. The Leipzig hub is one of DHL’s 3 global transshipment centers (Cincinnati (CVG) USA, Hong Kong (HKG), and Leipzig (LEJ) Germany). The sorting facility employs over 3,000 people. Operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – we are undoubtedly dealing with one of the largest logistics operators in the world.
The entire facility consists of 2 main buildings, an apron, and a fueling station, on which DHL spent 300 million euros. The total area occupied by the hub’s infrastructure is 129,868 m2. The largest building is the sorting facility, measuring 413 m in length, 97 m in width, and 16 m in height, with a total area of 48,000 m2. The sorting capacity is 60,000 standard parcels, 36,000 documents, and 10,000 non-standard parcels per hour. A parcel’s transit from the unloading point to the loading point takes less than 5 minutes. The sorting system, worth 70 million euros, was built by Van Der Lande. The sorting equipment is complemented by 20 barcode scanners and a video camera system that allows for the tracking of every shipment.
The hub handles 90% of European shipments and 10% of global DHL Express shipments. Thanks to optimization and maximum utilization of working time, the handling of an aircraft—consisting of parking, unloading, sorting containers, loading, and departure—takes only 120 minutes. During this time, flight crews can rest and relax in comfortable rooms located by the hangar. Currently, 60 aircraft are processed every night at the Leipzig airport.
You can see how it looks in practice for yourself by watching the video below (commentary in English):