Maltese Companies Rush To DHL’s Aid As Fears Of Undelivered Christmas Presents Take Over Social Media

Christmastime sees a heavy influx of work for a lot of companies, but nowhere does this seem to be more evident than DHL Malta. With so many parcels still awaiting processing and delivery at the Luqa warehouse, a MaltaPost spokesman told The Times Of Malta that the national courier service is helping DHL with the Christmas rush. Lovin Malta were also informed that taxi company eCabs have also stepped in to help, and judging by the number of alleged number of parcels there are, DHL need all the help they can get.
With hundreds of people complaining about undelivered parcels this week, one person decided to go there and try to get some answers. What they got is quite shocking; there are allegedly some 60 pallets with 5,000 items each still waiting in the DHL warehouse. And that adds up to 300,000 parcels, nearly one for each person in the country.
“I have a parcel that has been kept ‘hostage’ at DHL Malta since the 6th of December and they are saying that it is still in Germany,” the person’s complaint on popular Facebook Forum RUBS read. The person decided to start with DHL Germany, who quickly confirmed that the parcel had arrived in Malta within hours. Since, like so many people out there, the person had ordered the parcel as a Christmas present, they went to DHL Express’ office-warehouse-pick-up-point in Luqa to get a more concrete ETA.
“When I complained that my parcel has been sitting in their warehouse for two weeks, the guy serving me replied: ‘Uuu ha ngħidlek, fadallek x’tistenna, għax hemm sittin pallet b’5000 item f’kull waħda’, (‘Let me tell you, you’re in for more waiting, because there are 60 pallets with 5,000 items in each’),” the post continued. Apparently, the pallets are not numbered and aren’t necessarily opened by date. Therefore, parcels do not receive a first-shipped, first-delivered treatment.
The employee allegedly went on to say that they even had to put up a temporary tent so as not to leave pallets outside, alluding to the fact that the hangar-warehouse wasn’t even enough to hold all the parcels that are still waiting to be processed and delivered.

Both the local and international Facebook pages of DHL have recently been inundated with complaints, comments, tag and messages. One person left a post on the official international page, lamenting the fact that “all children in Malta will receive nothing for Christmas.” DHL replied some time later, directing her to the local support branch. They did however note that they had seen “several cases like this already in the last few days”.
In a statement yesterday, DHL confirmed the backlog. “We can confirm that we saw a surge of volumes in December that was even higher than we had forecast,” they said said. “We have put additional resources into place to ensure that all shipments can be processed and delivered in time for Christmas and are working very hard to clear the backlog.”
However, MaltaPost’s spokesman explained that these “exceptional deliveries” on behalf of DHL are actually “a common occurrence at Christmastime”, and that it was normal for different companies to work together at a busy time like this. Just this week, in fact, eCabs had also stepped in to help deliver Christmas presents to children in need.
As for the alleged 300,000 or so parcels still waiting at the Luqa warehouse, Lovin Malta reached out to DHL Europe, DHL Malta, and DHL Express’ customer care centre to confirm that number. We have yet to receive a reply from any of the above.
