IN Brief:
- DHL Group’s second-quarter revenue increased 13% to €22.4 billion.
- Express benefited from higher transported shipment weight and restricted international airfreight capacity.
- Low Rhine levels and disruption at Leipzig Airport required alternative operating arrangements.
DHL Group reported higher transported shipment weight and stronger network utilisation during the second quarter, as constrained international airfreight capacity and shifting trade flows increased demand across parts of its global logistics operation.
Group revenue rose 13% year on year to €22.4 billion, while operating profit increased 30% to €1.9 billion. The comparison benefited from a weaker prior-year quarter affected by tariffs and trade-policy conditions, but it also showed a material recovery in DHL Express volumes and earnings.
DHL Express generated revenue of €7.13 billion, up 21.5%, and operating profit of €1.2 billion, an increase of 64.3%. The division returned to growth in transported shipment weight, allowing fixed network costs to be spread across more freight while the company maintained yield and capacity discipline.
Temporary constraints in the international airfreight market contributed an estimated €150 million to Express earnings. DHL Global Forwarding also benefited from managing disruption across volatile markets, recording second-quarter revenue of €5.45 billion and operating profit of €240 million.
The figures show how disruption can create operational pressure and commercial opportunity at the same time. When capacity tightens, logistics groups with secured lift, routing options, and established customer volumes can protect service and command stronger yields. The same conditions can increase costs quickly when aircraft, crews, ground handling, or alternative routes have to be obtained at short notice.
Tobias Meyer, chief executive of DHL Group, said higher productivity and efficiency, combined with the company’s global network, had allowed revenue growth to produce stronger earnings growth. He also said customers were relying on operational flexibility as geopolitical tensions and shifting trade flows altered supply-chain requirements.
The network faced several forms of disruption during the quarter. Low water levels on the Rhine delayed some containers and required freight to move from inland waterways to roads, although DHL described the overall effect on its operations as limited. An overnight drone incident at Leipzig Airport also interrupted activity at one of the group’s principal air hubs and triggered contingency arrangements.
Neither event changed the group outlook, but both illustrate why resilience depends on arrangements made before freight stops moving. Alternative road capacity, airport routings, reserve handling arrangements, authority liaison, and customer communications are difficult to assemble after a disruption has already developed.
Air express networks are particularly sensitive because collection, sorting, flying, and delivery are compressed into tightly sequenced windows. A delay at a hub can cause shipments to miss the next aircraft or destination sort, turning a short interruption into a full-day service failure.
Recovery therefore depends on spare capacity elsewhere in the network and the ability to reprioritise time-critical freight. That flexibility carries a cost, which is easier to absorb when productive shipment weight is rising and aircraft are operating at stronger load factors.
The relationship between transported weight and network economics is central to the quarter’s performance. Express operators carry documents, parcels, pallets, and specialist freight, while a large proportion of cost is determined by aircraft, fuel, labour, and facilities rather than the number of individual pieces alone.
Higher productive weight can improve unit economics, provided the company does not buy excessively expensive capacity to accommodate it. The temporary restriction that supported earnings is unlikely to remain a permanent advantage because competitors can add lift, passenger belly capacity can recover, and demand can shift as customers alter sourcing patterns.
DHL therefore has to distinguish between structural volume growth and pricing created by temporary scarcity. Capacity added in response to a short-lived constraint can become expensive if the market normalises before the investment is fully used.
The group is continuing to invest despite that uncertainty. First-half capital expenditure on acquired assets rose 25% to €1.3 billion, covering the Express fleet, automated warehousing and sorting, and digital applications.
DHL is also expanding specialist operations in life sciences and healthcare, battery logistics, and data-centre supply chains. These activities involve cargo that is more regulated, valuable, or technically difficult to handle than standard parcels.
Specialist logistics can support stronger margins, but it introduces stricter requirements for temperature control, dangerous-goods procedures, security, chain of custody, installation support, and technical staffing. The operating model has to remain reliable when volumes rise and disruption affects the same network.
The group raised its 2026 operating-profit guidance in July to more than €6.5 billion and confirmed that expectation with the full results. Free cash flow excluding acquisitions reached €1.8 billion for the first half, while the share-buyback programme was increased and extended.
Those financial measures are secondary to the service question facing customers: whether shipment performance remains stable as volumes, route changes, and disruption rise together. Second-quarter results suggest that DHL entered the period with enough flexibility to benefit from tighter markets rather than be overwhelmed by them.
The next test will come when exceptional airfreight constraints ease. DHL will then have to retain the productivity and volume gains without relying on temporary scarcity to support network economics.
