UPS anticipates average daily volume during its peak Thanksgiving and Christmas season will vary from 14 million packages a day up to 20 million a day worldwide, the carrier said yesterday.
The Atlanta-based carrier said daily package volume will peak this year on Dec. 20, when UPS expects to handle about 20 million packages worldwide. The peak air day will fall on Dec. 21, when UPS expects to handle more than 5 million air packages worldwide, almost 2.5 times normal.
UPS said more than 2,500 UPS cargo flights will take off daily during its peak week, which is 300 more flights than on the average day. UPS' ground fleet of 88,000 package cars, vans and tractors will expand by about 7,000 vehicles during its peak season. UPS Airlines, the ninth largest in North America, will add 22 jets to its year-round operating fleet to handle the influx of holiday packages.
Last year UPS.com was among the most visited holiday Web sites, according to comScore Media Metrix. UPS.com gets 145 million hits on an average day. That number will exceed 260 million on UPS' busiest day Dec. 21. UPS also expects 16 million online tracking requests on its peak day, which is 1 million more than on its peak day in 2004.
Melissa Campanelli covers postal news, CRM and database marketing for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
