Why Your Express Parcel Flies via Leipzig.

You send a parcel in the morning, and the next day it lands on the recipient’s doorstep. That there is a transfer point somewhere in between usually only shows up in the tracking. Welcome to the hub-and-spoke model.

For shipping managers, this is more than curiosity. The transit time of a shipment depends on which hubs it passes through. This article explains the model in logistics, uses the DHL hub in Leipzig¹ as an example of how such a network works, and shows what it means for your B2B shipping. A caveat up front: LetMeShip does not operate its own hub network. We bring shipments from several carriers together on one platform. Knowing the logic behind it helps you choose carriers and transit times more deliberately.

In brief:

• A hub-and-spoke system is a network model in which a central hub is connected to many decentralized locations through direct links, the spokes.
• According to DHL, the DHL hub at Leipzig/Halle Airport is the most important hub in DHL Express’s global air freight network (source: DHL website, retrieved 13 October 2026).
• LetMeShip does not operate its own hub network. The platform bundles shipments from several carriers and shows shipment data on one interface.

A hub-and-spoke system is a network model in which a central node (the hub) is connected to many decentralized locations through direct links (the spokes). In German it is also known as the “Nabe-und-Speiche” model. Shipments do not travel directly from each origin to its destination. They are first taken to the hub, sorted and consolidated there, and then distributed onward.

The model comes from aviation. Airlines bundle passengers and cargo at a few hub airports instead of connecting every city with every other city. Parcel carriers adopted the principle because a few routes can reach many destinations.

The key point: a shipment does not take the shortest route. It takes the route that involves the least effort for the network as a whole. For the individual sender, that can mean a detour. For the network as a whole, it is efficient.

A hub is more than a storage site. It has three jobs:

• Sorting: shipments are separated by destination region or area.
• Consolidating: shipments for the same region are combined into larger units, so vehicles and aircraft run at high utilization.
• Transferring: the shipment changes mode of transport, for example from truck to aircraft, or from regional to long-haul transport.

The spokes are the connections between the hub and the origin or destination points. They can be short, for example within one region, or long, as with shipments from other countries. The feeder route often determines how long a parcel spends in the network before it reaches its destination.

The role of the hub also explains why a parcel for a neighbouring country can travel via a transfer point outside that country. That is not an error. It is part of the logic. Whether your shipment takes that route is shown in the tracking, not on the invoice.

The DHL hub at Leipzig/Halle Airport is a clear example of the principle on a large scale. According to the DHL site (retrieved 13 October 2026), Leipzig is the most important hub in DHL Express’s global air network. The key figures, as stated by DHL:

• Operation around the clock: 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with the main workload after sunset.
• Freight: more than 2,500 tonnes per day.
• Flight movements: 23,600 per year.
• Employees: over 7,000.
• Reach: 220 countries and regions.

Every night, freight is unloaded, sorted and reloaded at Leipzig. That explains why express shipments often pass through the hub overnight.

Not every express parcel flies via Leipzig. The carrier decides which route a shipment takes, based on destination and capacity. You can see the route in the tracking, not on the delivery note.

Like any model, this one has two sides. Anyone who reads only the advantages will be disappointed the first time a detour comes up.

Advantages:

• Fewer connections: with ten locations, a fully meshed network needs 45 direct connections (mathematically n·(n−1)/2). With one central hub, it needs ten spokes. That sounds theoretical, but each new location costs much less effort.
• Higher utilization: shipments are consolidated and vehicles run fuller. This lowers the cost per shipment, provided the volume is there.
• Easier scaling: a new destination is connected to the existing hub and does not need its own route to every other point.
• Central control: shipments pass through a few points. That makes tracking, damage reporting and quality control easier.

Disadvantages:

• Detours: a shipment between two neighbouring towns can still travel via the hub. That lengthens transit time.
• Dependence on the hub: if the hub fails, for example because of weather, strikes or a technical fault, the whole network is affected.
• Bottlenecks: congestion builds up at the hub when too many shipments are transferred at the same time. Waiting times add up.
• No benefit for single relations: anyone who only travels between two fixed locations pays for a detour they do not need.

The honest answer: hub-and-spoke pays off when many destinations are served with small volumes per destination. For a few heavily used relations, a direct connection may be the better fit.

The alternative is point-to-point. Every location is connected directly with every other location. At first this looks faster and simpler, because there is no detour. As the number of locations grows, however, it quickly becomes hard to manage.

Criterion	Hub-and-Spoke	Point-to-Point
Number of connections	Grows linearly with the number of locations	Grows quadratically with the number of locations
Transit time	Often longer, because of transfers at the hub	Often shorter, because direct
Utilization	High, because shipments are consolidated	Fluctuates more per relation
Dependence	On the hub	On the individual connection
Suited to	Many destinations, low volume per destination	Few relations with high volume

For your shipping, this means: if you regularly send many parcels to a few fixed recipients, point-to-point is often the better choice. If your shipments are spread across many recipients in many regions, hub-and-spoke delivers better utilization. The decision depends less on the model than on your distribution pattern.

A look at your data is enough for a first assessment. For the last three months, count your shipments by destination region. If a few regions receive many shipments, direct connections are likely to suit you. If many regions receive few shipments, a consolidating model is the better fit.

According to LAGERflaeche.de, the hub-and-spoke principle also applies to courier, express and parcel (CEP) services. Each carrier has its own network structure, with its own hubs, its own feeder routes and its own transfer times. How quickly a shipment reaches its destination depends on this structure.

For shipping managers, this matters because transit time does not depend on distance alone. It depends on how many transfers the shipment needs, when the pick-up at the hub takes place, and how stable the process is.

A note up front: this article does not compare rates. It is about transit time and reliability.

• Check transit times: for your main routes, compare not only the duration but also how much it varies. A transit time that changes by a day from one shipment to the next is harder to plan around than one that is always two days.
• Mind the cut-off times: when your parcel reaches the hub often determines the delivery day. Shipments handed in just after the cut-off often slip back a day.
• Choose carriers deliberately: which providers fit your destination, weight and service needs is shown on the pages for FedEx , DHL Express, and UPS. An overview is available on the carrier hub.
• Reduce dependence: if you use only one carrier, you depend on its hub network. If a hub fails, there is no alternative. Several carriers side by side give you fallback options. The multi-carrier shipping page shows how this works on our platform. On LetMeShip Next, you can compare and book multiple carriers in a single step.

Whether standard or express shipping suits your planning is explained in Standard or express shipping? For the full picture of your delivery times, the article on delivery times is also worth reading.

A parcel in the hub network passes through several stations: pick-up, feeder, transfer, onward routing, delivery. Each station is a possible point of delay. Without status updates, you see only the start and the end.

If you can follow every stage, you spot delays earlier. That helps customer communication and your own planning. Our article on International Tracking explains how to track shipments abroad.

To be clear: the status updates come from the carrier. A shipping platform displays them, but it does not operate the hub. If a transfer point is stuck, you will see it, but in most cases only the carrier can fix it.

International shipments via a hub have one more step: customs clearance. Depending on the route, the transfer may take place in a third country, where different documentation rules apply. This is the point where complete customs documents make the difference.

At LetMeShip, these steps run in the background. The customs invoice with HS codes and customs-relevant details is created automatically. The customs documents, such as the commercial invoice, are sent digitally to the relevant carrier. Your task is to provide complete shipment data. You can estimate the import duties for a shipment in advance with the import duty calculator.

The second point concerns billing. LetMeShip issues one consolidated invoice for all carriers. All shipments from all carriers appear on one invoice, so you do not have to reconcile the invoices of several providers one by one. This is particularly useful if your shipping runs through different hub networks, because it reduces the reconciliation work in accounting.

Preparation pays off in two areas:

• Capture complete shipment data: the product description, the value and the tariff number determine what the customs invoice contains. Missing information leads to rework and delays. The HS code finder explains how to find the right tariff number.
• Plan for the transfer: for shipments via a third country, customs clearance can extend transit time.

The hub-and-spoke model is not a trick, but a calculation. A few hubs reach many destinations, and you pay for the detours with transit time, not with chaos. Whether it suits your shipping depends on your distribution pattern over the last few months.

If you base your shipping on a single hub network, you’ll have no options if things go wrong. Flexibility in your choice of carriers is therefore not just a nice-to-have, but an operational necessity. Ready for the next shipment? Book shipping now

You might also be interested in: Strengthening the resilience of supply chains · The ‘Milkrun’ concept · International shipping with LetMeShip