As you might imagine, the holidays are the busiest time of year for the major shipping companies. How else would everyone get their gifts? But the real numbers are truly astounding. It takes an incredible number of people, every truck and box the shippers can get their hands on, and untold amounts of packaging, tape, and labels. But after all, this is how the shipping giants do Christmas.
Today is the last day to overnight any last-minute Christmas gifts before they officially arrive after the holiday. If you're late, let's hope you're reading this in line at the Post Office! But the busiest day of the year for the shipping giants is before today (thank goodness for you!). December 15 is the peak day for FedEx, which estimates it will handle 22.6 million packages. This number is slightly up from last year’s 22 million shipments on Dec. 16, 2013. That’s a lot of packages! The company projects it will handle a total of more than 85 million packages during the week of Dec. 7 to 13. Considering that FedEx typically handles more than 10.5 million parcels during an average day, you can bet FedEx employees will be working overtime to get it all done.
Fortunately, FedEx has plenty of helpers on the road and in the sky that help deliver the presents. More than 100,000 FedEx trucks are on the ground and 650 planes in the air. (And to think, Santa does it all with just nine reindeer!)
As you might imagine, FedEx’s biggest competitor, UPS, also has estimated it will be shipping an insane amount of packages. UPS estimates it delivered 34 million packages on Dec. 22, its peak day, up from last year’s single-day delivery record of 31 million. On an average day, UPS gets 17 million packages where they need to be, but they expect to deliver more than 585 million packages in the month of December alone. (To give some fun perspective, if you set each of those gifts side-by-side, they would circle the Earth 4.5 times.) To handle that heavy load, UPS calls in extra reinforcement, estimating that seasonal hiring reached 90,000 to 95,000 workers by late November.
But you can’t have a discussion about shipping in the U.S. without talking about USPS. To compete with UPS and FedEx, the postal service will deliver seven days per week during the Christmas season. From Nov. 17 to Christmas Day, USPS expects to deliver 450 to 470 million packages—a 12 percent increase from last year.
With all of this activity in one month, it's understandable that sometimes mistakes happen, especially as the last deadline approaches. Packages get thrown as workers are trying desperately to deliver everyones gifts, things get dropped, and damage happens. Do yourself and your loved ones a favor (not to mention the stressed out shippers) and take a few extra minutes to make sure each package is meticulously wrapped. Today is the official last day to get your Christmas gifts to their destination on time, but here are the general deadlines for each of the shipping giants:
USPS
Standard Post: Dec. 15
First-Class and Priority Mail Dec. 20
Priority Mail Express Dec. 23
UPS
Dec. 20: Last day to ship regular packages to arrive on Christmas
Dec. 22: Last day to ship Second-Day Air
Dec. 23: Last day to ship Next Day Air packages
FedEx
Dec. 23: Lastday to ship overnight
FedEx will deliver on Dec. 24. You’ll want to check this map to see where and how fast your package can ship. It depends on the distance.
The shipping deadlines for Navis Pack & Ship passed quite some time ago (we can't build those custom crates overnight, after all), but we hope that anyone taking the extra special care and attention of selecting a gift that requires the expert handling of our shipping professionals also had the foresight to bring it to us last month. We'll be here for your large, awkward, valuable, and fragile shipping needs all year round, and will be happy to help you deliver that extra-special gift to someone special next year (it's not too early to be thinking about next Christmas, is it?).
