Summary
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DHL Asia Pacific has an established Disaster Response Team (DRT) comprising of its employees from the region who are Airside Logistics Specialist and trained in Disaster Relief Aid handling. This is a stand-by resource for airport deployment in the event of a major sudden-onset disaster. The DRT provides free-of-charge airport ground handling to the humanitarian community for relief cargo arriving on charter cargo flights.
To assist in the Philippines response, the National Disaster Coordination Center (NDCC) requested DRT to manage the DRT Unsolicited Relief Aid Common Warehouse at Terminal 3 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila.
The role of the DHL DRT is to supervise the transfer of relief goods from the aircraft, provide airside warehouse management, including sorting and inventory of relief goods, liaison with customs, security, and acting as the consignee prior to handover of the relief cargo. It also provides assistance with customs processes in consultation with NDCC, and takes care of ensuring cargo is reloaded onto vehicles for onward transportation by truck, helicopter or aircraft. The necessary equipment has all been provided by DHL including forklifts, drivers, pallets, communications materials, and its own inventory system.
This process was initially put in place to handle unsolicited cargo. However, the Logistics Cluster is encouraging humanitarian organizations to use the service for solicited cargo as well. While organizations should still inform the NDCC and customs before relief goods enter the country, the DRT can collect it, facilitate clearance, temporarily store it, and make it available to agencies and NGOs when they are ready to move it forward. The team also remains available to provide guidance on customs.
To take advantage of this process, organizations are invited to contact the the DRT team directly at Charles.Wyley@dhl.com, or the Logistics Cluster Coordinator at baptiste.burgaud@wfp.org. Organizations wanting to benefit from the DRT service need to provide a letter authorizing DRT to receive their cargo from the airlines.