Freight News
Page 12
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Atlas takes the tomorrow trip
ATLAS EXPRESS is the latest parcels carrier to enter the nextday delivery market, and hopes to cover 97 per cent of the country from September 1.
It has been conducting unpublicised trials with the service, which is to be called Atlas Express Next Day, and which supercedes the longer-established Gold Band service, and will offer a 24-hour delivery service from all of its depots except Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Tavistock from next month.
The company will offer special rate next day services from those depots, and is prepared to consider extending the full service there later if it detects any demand for it.
Next Day will operate with a E2 premium for weekday deliveries and a 50 per cent surcharge for Saturday deliveries, against a 50 per cent weekday supplement now and no Saturday deliveries. Atlas's rates range from £6.98 for a 10kg local delivery to £53 for a 100kg consignment from the Midlands to Scotland.
As part of this change, Atlas is closing its Rotherhithe depot in the London docklands, with the loss of 62 jobs, and will handle its London area traffic from depots at Perivale (West London), Basildon and Dunstable.
It says there has been an overall decline in business in London, especially in the docklands area, and while it says the prospect of lorry bans in London is something it must bear in mind for future developments, they would not be a key factor in the decision to close Rotherhithe.
Atlas is also launching three new services on September 1, two to the Channel Islands and the other to the Irish Replublic.
Airpak Supaspeed will offer next-day delivery from the Next Day network to the Channel Islands (using air freight and an Atlas depot in Jersey), while Seapak Superspeed will take two days longer. This, effectively, is a relaunch of a poorly promoted Channel Islands service run for some time.
The Irish service, which is being run in partnership with Eurofreight, an Atlas subsidiary al ready established in Ireland, will offer a three to five-day delivery service from the United Kingdom.
Ireland's non-tariff restrictions on imports, which impose delays on vat clearance of goods entering the country, mean that a next-day service is out of the question. But Atlas is advising its customers to use deferred payment procedures to speed the progress of consignments.
The company is looking at other new products to boost its share of the fiercely competitive parcels market, in which most companies acknowledge the dynamic effect which TNT has had since its arrival in Britain.