The Hindu Business Line : Express services resume operations

EXPRESS services in the city, which came to a standstill on Wednesday and remained hit for the most part of Thursday, have since returned to normalcy.

Heavy rains in the city earlier in the week had affected operations at express companies and at the customers' end.

DHL Express, the international express solutions provider, will remain open over the weekend to accept and clear shipments awaiting despatch.

Mr Chris Callen, Country Manager, DHL Express, said while there were no pick-ups or deliveries on Wednesday and Thursday, most of DHL's customers in Mumbai were also shut on both days. None of the shipments received had suffered any damage and the company was on the job to reinstate communication links and power supply on a priority basis.He said that the logistics company had disaster-recovery systems in place to address such crunch situations. Further, its communications links were flexible and could be picked up from alternate centres if any one point suffered disruption.

Its freighter operations to Delhi functioned normally. Services at its other domestic centres were fully operational.

Blue Dart, which restored its network connectivity within a day despite the failure of local communication lines, operated three flights on Thursday.

According to Ms Tulsi Mirchandaney, Senior Vice-President, Marketing & Projects, Blue Dart, the backlogs for Mumbai at the company's Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai stations were cleared on Friday. Deliveries were hampered, as some consignees' warehouses were not in a position to receive shipments due to the flooding. The company's surface vehicles were all accounted for, though some of their warehouses were affected.

Services at AFL Pvt Ltd also resumed on Friday. Mr Manoj Chandra, Head-Market Development & Brand Communications, said though water had seeped into the company's warehouses, none of their parcels was damaged. The water had since receded. The domestic express business (AFL WiZ) had also resumed delivery and pick-up of shipments.

Export and import consignments that had piled up at the airport over the two rain-affected days would be cleared and normalised by Monday, Mr Chandra said.

Cargo Service Centre, the handling company for express companies, said operations had resumed on Friday. Though X-ray machines at the courier-handling terminal had got wet, the Airports Authority of India had provided them replacements. An official from the company, which is also the cargo-handling agent for some airlines, said there was not much damage to the cargo that remained loaded on trucks.

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