At UPS’s Worldport air transportation hub in Louisville, Ky., packages move on and off planes and through a maze-like system of conveyor belts each night.
Package handler Andrew Mcfarland and operations supervisor Nick LaBarbera said last week they have seen more goods moving via air, particularly clothing and entertainment orders, and often to individuals. Over the years, UPS has seen a huge increase in e-commerce; it now makes 35 percent of its deliveries to homes.
LaBarbera said the number of bulk shipments — such as those that might be going to stock shelves in stores for the holidays — increased over the past several years, but it’s difficult to talk about the big picture this season since handlers don’t see the same bulk shipments each week.
“It’s kind of spotty,” he said.
Additionally, UPS has been routing more goods through the Louisville facility to take advantage of the automation and capacity, so more packages coming through Worldport may not be indicative of any change in shipping for the coming holiday season.
Worldport Wing E manager Michael Armendt said he had more than 1.27 million next-day air packages go through the system on the day after Labor Day, and 966,000 on a mid-September weeknight, up from a year ago.
Worldport has the capacity to move 416,000 packages an hour, and from the hub’s humming floors, it’s difficult to see a still-slow economy, Armendt said.
“Everything I’ve read says the economy is getting worse by the day, but it doesn’t seem to be really translating here,” he said. “People seem to be shipping quite a bit.”
Armendt said small packages seem heavier this year and he is seeing more irregularly shaped packages going through the system.
But UPS hasn’t yet hired its peak-season workforce, and Armendt said he doesn’t know how many of the 700 to 1,000 temporary workers the company usually hires will be brought on this season.
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