“We see a market where customers are shifting from air to rail because it’s cheaper. Other customers who use ocean freight but have delays in production can move their products quickly by rail, when they normally would have had to send it by air,” Kaufmann said.

According to DHL GF Korea Managing Director Song Seok-pyo, the new multimodal system cuts shipping time by about 20 days vis-a-vis ocean freight and cuts costs to about one-sixth that of air freight.

“Even if you have different modes of transport, by using one transport document we cover liability from domicile to domicile,” Kaufmann said. “We have our own operations in air freight, ocean freight and rail. We have one IT system. This makes it possible to have seamless transport.”

The service is already offered in Japan and Taiwan. According to the DHL executives, the service was delayed in Korea because the company needed time to assess customer demand and secure space on DHL’s trains. 

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)