UPS is preparing for its busiest week of the year helping retailers and shoppers by deliveringmore than 120 million packages worldwide in the big holiday rush over the next days. FedEx, too, is
dealing with peak volumes at present.UPS expects Thursday December 22 to be its busiest day of the year with nearly 26 millionpackages to be delivered, and expects to deliver almost 25 million packages on several other daysduring the peak week from December 19 through to December 24. Today, on the busiest tracking day ofthe year, UPS will also manage more than 58 million online requests.
To ensure timely delivery, UPS Airlines will add more than 400 additional flights per day and onits busiest day, process 3 million express shipments in a 24-hour period through its LouisvilleWorldport facility. UPS stressed that late shoppers can ship as late as Friday, Dec. 23, using UPSNext Day Air with Saturday delivery and still have gifts arrive on Christmas Eve.
To provide more convenience to customers, the company is offering its recently launched service,UPS My Choice, alerting them with an e-mail or text message the day before a package is delivered.For a small fee, registered members can reschedule or reroute the delivery. Since its launch onOctober 3, half a million consumers have registered for UPS My Choice.
For do-it-yourself holiday shipping solutions and to prepare shipping labels, customers can goto UPS website UPS.com. Packages then can be picked up by a UPS driver, placed in one of 40,000 UPSdrop boxes or dropped off at a UPS Customer Centre, The UPS Store, Mail Boxes Etc. or otherauthorised shipping outlets.
Meanwhile, FedEx handled some 17 million shipments – almost double its daily average volume –through its global networks on December 12, its busiest-ever day. To handle the surge, FedEx hasadded 20,000 seasonal positions at FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx SmartPost and isoffering additional shifts to current team members working at facilities around the country.
“There’s an extraordinary amount of technology and precision that is in place at FedEx toensure packages get to their destinations before Christmas,” said John Dunavant, vice president ofthe FedEx Express World Hub in Memphis, Tennessee. “At the Memphis hub alone we will see up tothree million packages speed down 42 miles of conveyor belts on our busiest December day, each onescanned an average of 23 times to ensure we know where our customers’ shipments are at any giventime. And as busy as we are in Memphis, FedEx hubs and stations around the world are feeling theholiday surge as well.”
