UPS operations return to ‘peak operating plan’ after initial cyber week surge

United Parcel Service struggled to handle increased e-commerce volumes during the cyber week surge, but a UPS spokesperson on Monday told American Shipper its operations have retured to the “peak operating plan” after the initial cyber week surge.    United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) struggled to handle increased e-commerce volumes during the cyber week surge, resulting in delivery delays and prompting the carrier to push drivers to work extra hours, the Atlanta-based express carrier and parcel giant confirmed.
   In addition, UPS announced on its Twitter on Friday and Saturday that the wildfires in California, along with the severe weather in Georgia and North Carolina, were impacting service.
   UPS – which handles deliveries for Amazon.com Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and Macy’s Inc. – has added one or two days in transit time on “an unspecified number of deliveries following record sales around Cyber Monday,” spokesperson Steve Gaut said to the Wall Street Journal last week. “We have shifted more employees and other resources to these markets to address this cyber week surge,” Gaut said.
   UPS spokesperson Matthew O’Conner told American Shipper today that, “UPS’ operations have returned to the peak operating plan after the initial cyber week surge. As previously announced, UPS expects to deliver about 750 million packages this holiday season, which is about 5 percent more than 2016’s holiday volume of more than 712 million packages. That’s about 40 million more packages than last year. The vast majority of packages will be delivered in accordance with the service commitments for the specified time-in-transit.  
   “Through a combination of new capacity and seasonal hiring, UPS expects to process nearly double the normal average daily volume of more than 19 million packages and documents,” O’Conner added. “UPS customers can be confident that UPS is taking the necessary steps to ensure the network operates with its customary dependable performance throughout the holiday season.”
   UPS announced last month that it was integrating with Canada-based e-commerce platform Shopify for expanded shipping and delivery for the holiday season, but also hiked peak shipping rates for November and December.
   The Wall Street Journal reported that 89.2 percent of parcels shipped through UPS Express last week were delivered on time, according to ShipMatrix, while FedEx Express saw 99.4 percent of its packages delivered the day they were due.
   The U.S. Postal Service delivers more online orders than both UPS and FedEx and has expanded delivery hours to handle the increase in volume, with services such as next-day Sunday delivery, American Shipper reported last month.