Courier companies face high Christmas volumes

The pressure is on for all of the major courier companies this Christmas, including UPS, FedEx and DHL.

As in previous years, a surge in online shopping in the run-up to the festive period—in particular due retail behemoths such as Amazon and Walmart—has added huge volumes to delivery networks. This began with the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in late November.

Despite preparations this year, UPS has reported that the influx of parcels has “overwhelmed expectations”.

However, the 750 million packages expected during peak season “will be delivered in accordance with the service commitments for the specified time-in-transit”, according to a UPS spokesperson.

FedEx is expected to ship 400 million parcels this year. “FedEx is proud of the outstanding service we’ve been able to provide during the first week of the peak holiday season,” the company told Bloomberg via email, and described themselves as “well-positioned” to meet demand.

Whoever you choose to send with this year, we highly recommend adding one or two extra working days to the estimated transit time of your parcel deliveries.

We have links to last shipping dates for each courier on our Christmas information page.