Deliverers hit holiday crunch time
MINNEAPOLIS — This week is expected to be the busiest of the holiday mailing and shopping season with many people rushing to mail gifts and cards in time for Christmas. Despite the unique supply chain headaches and labor shortages of this year, shippers kept up with demand and are on track to finish the year strong.
“This our season,” said Desai Abdul-Razzaaq, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service. “This is when we shine and do our best.”
The Postal Service estimates that it will process and deliver nationwide nearly 2.3 billion pieces of mail including cards and packages just this week as it reaches several of its deadlines to ensure items are delivered in time for Christmas including retail ground service as of Wednesday, First-Class Mail by Friday and Priority Mail by Saturday.
FedEx’s Ground services shipping deadline was also Wednesday. While UPS suggested shipping dates are later, Wednesday was the deadline one local franchise recommended to make sure packages get there on time.
Nationally, the Postal Service has been preparing for the holiday rush since the beginning of the year after package delivery last Christmas grew by nearly 50%.
The Postal Service has hired thousands of employees since then, and it added 40,000 seasonal hires for this season. It also leased 13 million square feet of additional space to help address space constraints.
A postal support annex of more than 300,000 square feet just outside Minneapolis features a new package sorting machine that can process thousands of packages an hour, or up to 12 times faster than manual sorting.
“It’s just been insanity,” said Kimberly Thompson, who has worked for the Postal Service for almost 25 years, as she finished up her Tuesday route delivering to a St. Paul apartment complex. Thompson’s parked postal van shared the block with a FedEx truck
and then a UPS truck.
Thompson, who has been working overtime, had a 13-hour day Monday and only had enough time to eat carrots and almonds as she delivered packages and mail beginning at 6 a.m. She can walk as much as 30,000 steps during a shift. Holiday packages continue to increase each year, she said.
“It’s very overwhelming and then you have the weather to deal with,” she said.
As of late last week, major parcel carriers have shown high on-time performance during the last three busy shipping weeks including during Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to software company ShipMatrix.
By taking into account express service as on time if delivered by end of the day and ground service on time if delivered within one extra day, the Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx reported nearly 100% on-time performance for the busy shipping week of Nov. 28 through Dec. 4.
Even if retailers do promise fast delivery, customers should be cautious as mail carriers have added extra days to their commitment times during the holiday peak.