UPS dealing with fuel costs

Business

Will UPS' rising fuel charges, passed along to customers, cover the package delivery company's actual fuel costs?

UPS driver Yolandra Bynum fuels up her truck with diesel at the UPS hub off Marvin Miller Drive. On Aug. 4, UPS' fuel surcharge for ground packages will soar to 10.25 percent.

In December 2000, UPS announced for the first time that the Sandy Springs-based package carrier would add "temporary" fuel surcharges to the cost of shipping.

Eight years later, the surcharges aren't going anywhere in the near future. Steadily marching upward, they've been in lock-step with the galloping cost of fuel.

Consumers are also feeling the charges, which are showing up in the cost of food, travel and countless other items, especially those that are transportation intensive.

Driver Rachel Stone fuels up her truck with regular unleaded gasoline. UPS spokesman Norman Black said that the fuel surcharge doesn't cover UPS' entire cost of fuel.

UPS' policy is not to increase fuel surcharges daily but to give customers 45 days notice. That creates an expensive lag time for the company, which has 264 airplanes and 93,637 package cars, vans, tractors, motorcycles to fuel each day.

A UPS driver fills up her eco-friendlier truck with compressed natural gas at the hub. The trucks represent a small, but growing, portion of the fleet.

John Reeves logs his gasoline intake. UPS has set up three task forces to look at the short-, mid- and long-term implications of fuel costs,

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UPS driver Yolandra Bynum fuels up her truck with diesel at the UPS hub off Marvin Miller Drive. On Aug. 4, UPS' fuel surcharge for ground packages will soar to 10.25 percent.

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