New Zealand’s transport workers played a critical role in keeping the country moving during the busy holiday season, and Deb O’Brien, owner of Debz Transport in the Hutt Valley, was among operators leading the charge with her team of 14.
Handling deliveries for major retailers like Temu, Shein, and Booktopia, Debz Transport processed thousands of packages arriving daily at Wellington Airport.
The peak period, coming after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, saw a surge in demand, with goods arriving in large air containers holding up to 1000 items each.
The parcels were transported to a secure site in Lyall Bay, where O’Brien and her team scanned each item by hand.
If a parcel scans green and goes “beep”, it’s good to go, but if they come up red, the scanning app “makes a hell of a racket”, she says, explaining the rigorous process. Those parcels are put aside for checking by New Zealand Customs Service.
And then it’s the turn of NZ Couriers or Aramex to get involved, with each driver collecting the parcels, sorting them into bins and scanning everything again.
It’s a thorough process which O’Brien and her team have gotten pretty good at.
“I can scan an air container of a thousand items in an hour and a quarter,” she says.
The only problem for her is that when she’s getting down to the bottom of the air container, she’s on her hands and knees.
“I’ve got to watch myself because I’ve banged my head a couple of times!”
O’Brien, a former board member of Transporting New Zealand and a current member of the General Freight Sector Group, didn’t just focus on deliveries during the holidays. She went the extra mile to ensure her staff and fellow truckies felt appreciated.
Despite days that often stretch from 5am to 6pm, she found time to make rocky road sweets, Christmas puddings, and hams for staff goodie bags. She also personally prepared 250 hand-made Christmas cards for customers and clients—just another way she shows her commitment to her team and community.
