This year’s holiday season started for the parcel carrier PPL practically at the end of October, when the company launched a new high-capacity transshipment facility in Hradec Králové. Successful handling of increased volumes of shipments will also be helped by the expanded network of PPL Parcelshops and PPL Parcelboxes, which are a greener option from the viewpoint of the environment and logistics, compared to delivering individual shipments to the door.
“Recent years have changed buying behaviour and also accelerated progress and processes in the logistics sector. And we at PPL are moving with the times. This year, we introduced a lot of digital and innovative new features, as well as cutting-edge technologies, and expanded our transport network, including the opening of a second transshipment facility. The network of our PPL Parcelshops and PPL Parcelboxes is also growing, thanks to which we will be able to handle and deliver an extremely high number of parcels this holiday season without reducing the storage time at the pick-up points,” said Petr Horák, CEO of PPL CZ, on the start of this year’s holiday season.
In the pre-Christmas period, the daily volumes of shipments increase by up to 50% compared to the average for the rest of the year, yet according to Horák 25 depots across the Czech Republic, 2 transshipment facilities, more than 4,000 PPL Parcelshops and PPL Parcelboxes across the Czech Republic, over 2,000 professional drivers, over 1,000 temporary workers and another 1,000 employees are ready to fulfil the Christmas wishes and expectations of all their customers.
PPL Reports Sufficient Capacity and Readiness
PPL delivers several hundred thousand parcels a day in holiday season, so it will have up to 60% more vehicles deployed on the busiest days. "We expect the holiday season to be at its peak in the period just before the Christmas holidays, with the prediction that this year we can break the 500,000 shipments per day mark, which would mean a 10 percent increase from last year’s holiday season,” added Horák. To cope with these huge volumes, the company will, as in previous years, recruit hundreds of seasonal drivers and extra handling staff before Christmas. “As we deliver up to twice the standard volumes on the busiest days of the year, the number of vehicles corresponds to this. For this year, according to our estimates, the number of vehicles before Christmas will be around 2,000,” said Horák.
Package Delivery by Christmas
Which is the latest day to send a parcel with a guarantee of delivery by Christmas Eve this year? “At PPL, we deliver up to and including 23 December. Delivery will depend on when the e-shop can dispatch the package. If it is on Thursday 22 December, PPL will deliver over 98 per cent of such parcels on Friday 23 December and a gift will be under the tree on Saturday. Of course, it is better to order as soon as possible and not to leave purchases to the last minute, but we will take care of these packages as well," explained Horák.
New this Holiday Season: Modern Technology, Expansion of Pick-up Point Network and Digitisation
A major event this autumn was the launch of the pilot operation of the new, second transshipment facility in Hradec Králové, which is located on the D11 motorway and complements the one previous central transshipment facility near Prague, in Říčany - Jažlovice. Two state-of-the-art automated sorting lines enable high-speed sorting; they can handle up to 500,000 shipments in 24 hours via more than 1,000 sorting trolleys, thus ensuring sufficient capacity for PPL customers and faster connection to PPL’s transport network with 25 depots across the Czech Republic. It will also improve accessibility and connectivity to the DHL European network and other foreign markets. “The newly opened, strategically located depot in the South Moravian town of Hustopeče u Brna and the modernised depots in Zlín and Ostrava will also help us to cope with the expected pre-Christmas delivery pressure," added Horák.
This year, the company is also continuing to expand its network of PPL Parcelshops and PPL Parcelboxes, which offer consumers another alternative for picking up and sending parcels. In addition to delivery by driver to an address, PPL customers currently have over 4,000 PPL pick-up points in the Czech Republic. “Thanks to PPL Parcelboxes, we are closer and available 24/7 to our customers and recipients. They can have items delivered to, redirected to, or sent from them according to the time they have available, which reduces the number of unsuccessful deliveries, among other things. Our drivers then save mileage and time and are able to deliver more parcels during the day, which allows us to offer customers and e-shops, in addition to delivery directly to the address, also more cost-effective delivery to pick-up points with prices starting at CZK 58,” said Horák, according to whom the option of picking up or delivering a parcel at a time that suits them is what people really appreciate in the run-up to Christmas.
In a similar way, digitalisation and innovation are going in a new direction at PPL and are a challenge for the future. A new feature this autumn is a new service of sending a parcel without the need to print a label, which is ideal for sending parcels back to e-shops or parcels between citizens, for example. PPL Customers will now only receive a QR code and a 6-digit SmartPIN, which they can show to the operator at the PPL Parcelshop, scan at the PPL Parcelbox or show to the driver when the parcel is picked up.
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