Millions of packages found their way onto doorsteps in December. You may have ordered a new Smart phone or that ugly Christmas sweater. UPS Worldport; world’s largest automated sorting facility, plays a significant role in making that happen. Total of 18,000 local UPS employees (UPSers) are key to that success. Since UPS package volume spikes by approximately 60% starting Cyber weekend through early January. Here’s a snapshot of the numbers in the age of e-commerce.

Worldport by the numbers:

• 2M (million) packages are sorted on average each night during the year. That number rises to more than 4M by Christmas Day. The e-commerce impact has nearly doubled the total night volume from 6 years ago.
• UPS shipped 32M packages per day during peak season
• 5.2M square feet comprise the Worldport facility.
• UPS’s hired 2,600 new seasonal employees locally
• 10,000 UPSers work at Worldport.
• 11 new 747 aircraft were purchased this year
• Package integrity: When packages arrive in Worldport, most are only handled twice by humans.
• 416,000 pkgs/documents get sorted on average each hour.

But what happens when the Smart phone you ordered isn’t smart enough or the ugly sweater is….well, too ugly and needs to be returned. The new normal is that peak season doesn’t end on Christmas day. National Returns Day on January 2^nd was the 7^th consecutive record breaking returns day. It jumped 26% from last year, equaling a total 1.9M returns in the UPS network. Helping us all avoid the long lines at retailers on December 26.

Kevin Schroerlucke
Customer Relations Manager
UPS Worldport