FedEx buys TNT

[Atlantis]

Fedex is interested in the ROADNETWORK of TNT. Fedex has already their flight hubs in CDG and CGN. A third one would be not logic and not cost efficient when they are all so close together.

The plan to invest in LGG by TNT was decided already long time ago and has nothing to do with the merger.
TNT planned to invest much more in their own road network.

And said once again: Fedex agreed to move their own HQ to that of TNT in Hoofddorp, but futher no other gifts to TNT

[BRU]

Perhaps it is not a gift to TNT, but if more capacity and better setup in LGG, why not move the smaller FedEx operation from CGN to the bigger TNT operation in LGG where it also gives a nice fit with the existing European (both road and air) network ?

Do agree that keeping CDG, CGN and LGG in the long run does not make sense. CDG will stay, so it is between LGG and CGN. Question here: who has best cards ?

[an-148]

CDG will stay, so it is between LGG and CGN. Question here: who has best cards ?

why are so many SURE that CDG will stay ?
many think that there will be a choice between LGG and CGN (which choice has to be made in case of integration, for sure) .............. but nobody is thinking that they could drop the hub in CDG to get ALL movement on one place, in the middle of their present locations.
it made sense for them to group all administrative works on one place, in Amsterdam , why would it not make sense to group all flight on one place ?
reminder: CDG is expensive, the night slots are stricly restricted (selling them would even be very interresting): wouldn't it make more sense to group everything related to flights and road in one place with a bottleneckfree road access and full slotless night operations at a fraction of the price they pay in CDG (and/or in CGN) and in a place where they would be quasi-alone during the night ???

all this discussion is related to the risks of LGG to loose traffic, but did someone think that it could take another shape ?

happy to read some comments

[sn26567]

Perhaps it is not a gift to TNT, but if more capacity and better setup in LGG, why not move the smaller FedEx operation from CGN to the bigger TNT operation in LGG where it also gives a nice fit with the existing European (both road and air) network ?

Road and air, ... and don't forget the future Carex HST rail station! One additional trump for LGG.

[Acid-drop]

i wanted to see the conclusion of the members of this forum before making mine ... and so i agree with 80% of you... lgg may kill the cgn hub (again) and may receive a few flight from cdg also since its very expensive there (and the geography wins)

[Flanker2]

I think that there is a lot of wishful thinking here.
Why would Fedex want to buy TNT?
-For their processing facilities which have low costs? CGN is as good if not better, they barely have moved in there.
-For their airline operations, which they have to contract from a buyer, eroding their margins? Not a chance.
-For their customer base and market share in Benelux? Now that is the only thing that makes sense.

I think that Liege can kiss their TNT hub goodbye as it doesn't make any sense to operate two plants 100 kilometers apart. CGN is also a low cost and efficient operation. In addition, it's closer to everywhere in Germany, which is much bigger than the Benelux market.

They have recently expanded in CDG. No chance in hell they are leaving it.
In addition, at CDG they have access to a huge inventory of cheap belly volume, which they don't have in CGN nor could have in LGG.

This is another freighter leaving the Belgian market. It's unfortunate but Belgium doesn't have anything to offer from a business/investment perspective. It won't happen overnight, but the writing is already in the walls.
Actually it's literally in the walls, as they are saying that they're going to keep, rather than invest in this hub.
It means: "keep working, your jobs are safe (until the take-over is done and over and then...)".

It's also not that bad a loss from a social perspective. After all this is Belgium, where welfare pays almost as well as working on a precarious job. The lost jobs are not high quality jobs, so it only gives the welfare system and the governance more things to not care about...

[Acid-drop]

May be correct but if lgg is (will be) 3x bigger than cgn, we can afford a large amount of hope.
plus the official communication is very clear about lgg future.
(Surprisingly clear actually)

[cnc]

if it was up to me i'd move all air traffic from CDG to LGG, keep the CDG ops only as massive central distribution centre and operate a freight train between LGG and CDG but france would never allow such a shift

[lumumba]

if it was up to me i'd move all air traffic from CDG to LGG, keep the CDG ops only as massive central distribution centre and operate a freight train between LGG and CDG but france would never allow such a shift

Belly cargo is to important at CDG it's the same for DHL at Brussels in bigger!
Train is not an option it's express cargo you will loose to much time with a train...
France has nothing to decide if they wanna leave they leave but I don't now what contract they have with CDG.

[Acid-drop]

Well the 1st phase of the euro carex has cdg, lgg and cgn connected together... so it's not that crazy

[cnc]

if it was up to me i'd move all air traffic from CDG to LGG, keep the CDG ops only as massive central distribution centre and operate a freight train between LGG and CDG but france would never allow such a shift

Belly cargo is to important at CDG it's the same for DHL at Brussels in bigger!
Train is not an option it's express cargo you will loose to much time with a train...
France has nothing to decide if they wanna leave they leave but I don't now what contract they have with CDG.

belly cargo could be kept that way, only shift change would be the flights they operate themselfs.
and you'd be surprised how important politics are in such cases

[lumumba]

if it was up to me i'd move all air traffic from CDG to LGG, keep the CDG ops only as massive central distribution centre and operate a freight train between LGG and CDG but france would never allow such a shift

Belly cargo is to important at CDG it's the same for DHL at Brussels in bigger!
Train is not an option it's express cargo you will loose to much time with a train...
France has nothing to decide if they wanna leave they leave but I don't now what contract they have with CDG.

belly cargo could be kept that way, only shift change would be the flights they operate themselfs.
and you'd be surprised how important politics are in such cases

But you don't understand they use the belly cargo like there flight's.
It's part of the hub!!!!!

[cnc]

we offer flights to africa operated by SN. does this make it our flights? no it doesn't.
same thing for belly cargo... they don't need flight operations to offer belly cargo if they aren't the operator

[Flanker2]

A full-fledged hub in LGG could work, with an own fleet of aircraft, as TNT was doing up to now.
The location is good, the airport is cheap and cargo-friendly.
But under a big company like Fedex who already operates hubs in the vicinity? I don't see it.

Also, who'd be foolish enough to buy TNT Airways?
A bunch of old converted freighters, most on wetleases, without a long-term contract with a forwarder?
Unless someone is interested in starting up a new Belgian forwarder that comes with an airline and a hub, I don't see it.

I think that the nightlights are going to go out at LGG within 2-3 years and everything is going to go with it.
The guys at X-Air should load as much kerosene as they can, while they can.

Freight trains don't work for express logistics the way it's set-up now.
It's just cheaper, more flexible, more reliable and faster to run trucks, which is why about every sector of logistics has abandoned rail for road in Europe.
If you have to haul everything from CDG to LGG to sort it out, you have to sort everything twice.

[cnc]

Freight trains don't work for express logistics the way it's set-up now.
It's just cheaper, more flexible, more reliable and faster to run trucks, which is why about every sector of logistics has abandoned rail for road in Europe.
If you have to haul everything from CDG to LGG to sort it out, you have to sort everything twice.

every future minded transport/logistics player is looking if not yet active on the tracks. atleast for a part because of the eu subsidies.

[lumumba]

Those belly flight's are hundred of flight's they lose if they move to Liege.
It's cheap and easy a lot of those flight they can not do it them self the volume is not big enough.
Like DHL do it in Brussels with the flight's of SN to Africa...

[cnc]

Those belly flight's are hundred of flight's they lose if they move to Liege.
It's cheap and easy a lot of those flight they can not do it them self the volume is not big enough.
Like DHL do it in Brussels with the flight's of SN to Africa...

please quote the part where somebody wrote to move such ops away from CDG...

[lumumba]

Those belly flight's are hundred of flight's they lose if they move to Liege.
It's cheap and easy a lot of those flight they can not do it them self the volume is not big enough.
Like DHL do it in Brussels with the flight's of SN to Africa...

please quote the part where somebody wrote to move such ops away from CDG...

cnc wrote:
if it was up to me i'd move all air traffic from CDG to LGG, keep the CDG ops only as massive central distribution centre and operate a freight train between LGG and CDG but france would never allow such a shift

[cnc]

Those belly flight's are hundred of flight's they lose if they move to Liege.
It's cheap and easy a lot of those flight they can not do it them self the volume is not big enough.
Like DHL do it in Brussels with the flight's of SN to Africa...

please quote the part where somebody wrote to move such ops away from CDG...

cnc wrote:
if it was up to me i'd move all air traffic from CDG to LGG, keep the CDG ops only as massive central distribution centre and operate a freight train between LGG and CDG but france would never allow such a shift

doens't mean they couldn't keep using space on other operator aircrafts... just move their own operated aircraft to LGG

[Flanker2]

doens't mean they couldn't keep using space on other operator aircrafts... just move their own operated aircraft to LGG

Fedex do this in Japan.
They have the KIX hub where they have most of their airfreight ops, and then they have the NRT hub, closer to the main market, eg Tokyo, where they also have access to belly capacity.
But then they don't have another hub just down the road from KIX...
This setup also completely takes them out of Japan's main domestic market, where Fedex has no chance against the ultra-efficient domestic competition who use almost exclusively belly capacity with a single main hub at HND.

If you think that you can ship 5kg of fish door to door at 8pm, arriving at 6am 1000 kilometers further away, and transported refrigerated all the way, for a decent price, we here in Europe are operating in the Stone Age.

If Fedex were buying such an operator as Yamato, I could see it continuing as a stand-alone hub/operation, simply because it adds a network that doesn't duplicate with a Fedex network.

But if you look at it, TNT does the same things that Fedex, DHL and UPS do. Nothing special there to add value, except that TNT struggled in operational efficiency because they lack the shear mass to be a true global player.
In my view, to Fedex, TNT only has value if they can absorb the customers, without having to absorb the duplicate operations. The airline is one part of it, but the rest will follow after time.

I'm all for rail in the future.
In fact, I think that the days of commercial aviation are numbered. Give it 100 years and it will be game over.
Maglev technology is progressing and will become the mainstay means of transportation for centuries to come.
But we're not there yet. Aviation has to bridge the gap between the steam locomotives and the 1000km/h intercontinental Maglevs.