From the state capital of Hessen to the whole world: For TNT Express, the location of Wiesbaden represents one of the most important junctions in the European network. Here, the company operates not only one of its 31 national branches but also its worldwide third-largest sorting centre. Thomas Kraus, chairman of the executive board of TNT Express Germany, about the location and significance of the region for TNT Express:
The Rhine-Main region is Germany’s most important traffic junction. With the Rhine-Main airport and its CargoCity, the Frankfurt motorway interchange, the main Frankfurt railway station and the Frankfurt airport long-distance railway station, the region around Wiesbaden and Frankfurt offers ideal conditions from a traffic logistics viewpoint. Moreover, numerous companies have settled here in sectors for which TNT Express can offer customized transportation solutions.
How well-positioned are we in this highly interesting region? As the third-largest facility in the worldwide TNT Express network, our location in Wiesbaden plays a decisive role in optimizing operational processes as well as shortening national and international run times. As one of the leading providers of expedited service in the B2B field, TNT Express makes up to 4.4 million weekly time-critical deliveries to destinations in over 200 countries. To this effect, 26,600 vehicles and over 40 company-owned aeroplanes are being deployed. Our own hubs are junctions in the worldwide network, where single deliveries are instantly transferred and redirected. From its Wiesbaden hub, TNT Express can reach 30 destinations in Germany and upwards of 520 across Europe – partly by land, partly by way of our aerial network. For this purpose, we set up our own permanent shuttle trucking service between the road hub in Wiesbaden and the TNT Airfreight Center at the Frankfurt airport, which is synchronized with the flight departure times.
Our clients – almost exclusively industrial and commercial companies – are entitled to expect from us, as a premium service provider, that we offer them an uninterrupted, punctual and reliable service network. In this regard, our Wiesbaden hub is an ideal location – in the middle of the flow of goods and in proximity to our customers in the region.Hub means centre. Like the spokes of a wheel, multiple connections converge at this central location. Those hubs in our network are crucial building blocks of a strategic orientation towards present and future developments in the field of expedited transport service.
This is where traffic merges, splits up, and is directed. In Germany, the high service level of TNT Express products is achieved by means of a “backbone” comprising three hubs, which provides our clients a critical time and quality advantage: While deliveries within the North are transferred at the Hanover hub and those within the South at the Nuremberg hub, the Wiesbaden facility serves as a north-south and east-west junction – including cross-border deliveries.
Our gates to the world are the international road hub in Arnheim and the TNT Express air hub in Liège. Those two locations connect us with the group’s worldwide network and provides our clients access to trade with, say, the so-called BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. With their above-average growths, they have been on the verge of catching up with the “old” economic powers for years now. To provide our clients the best possible connection with those economic powerhouses, TNT Express has been making long-term investments in all emerging markets of the global economy – and our hub in Wiesbaden ensures a quick and trouble-free traffic of goods with those regions.
In other words: The location of Wiesbaden puts us exactly where our clients need us. The various services offered by TNT Express have your needs covered at all times. They range from our standard products to professional branch-specific solutions for the life science, automotive and high-tech markets. For deliveries that, due to their size, weight or extraordinary time requirements, cannot be handled by the standard Express network, our special services open up unique alternatives: nation- and Europe-wide direct deliveries, international air charter, onboard couriers, and other options are available for every transportation requirement.
By the way, the Rhine-Main region has more to offer to the TNT Express network than outstanding traffic connections. As a premium service provider, we rely on skilled and motivated personnel – which we can find in the region. Already, the logistics and mobility sector in Hessen nowadays employs more than 200,000 people. Moreover, no other region in Germany boasts an equally high density of scientists and companies in the mobility and logistics branches. That, too, is part of the structural conditions that have made our success story in Wiesbaden possible. Since opening the hub in 2001, we have doubled our administrative and non-administrative staff to a total of 400.
As a sustainability-conscious company, we are, of course, aware of our significance for the location. Employing young talent, for example, is one of our priorities. Every year, many young persons are trained in logistics and business professions, and our branch has maintained a training partnership with the Wiesbaden Oranienschule (school) since 2009. This is a way for us not only to fulfil our responsibility but also to bring the students closer to the economy and our company – after all, today’s students will be tomorrow’s professionals.
I am therefore convinced that the Rhine-Main region and TNT Express are a perfect match – in a productive cooperation, which makes a lasting contribution to the economic growth of the region as well as its significance in the international movement of goods and services.
Thomas Kraus was born in 1966 and has occupied various management positions at TNT Express Germany since 1 July 1990. Before becoming chairman of the executive board in 2006, he had been managing director of sales, marketing and customer service for three years.
