UPS And FedEx Having Trouble With Holiday Volume

(RTTNews) - United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. are struggling to deliver packages as the holiday shipping volumes rose more than expected.

Millions of packages that were ordered by online shoppers since the Thanksgiving period has been delayed, according to a WSJ report. UPS has relocated hundreds of staff from its headquarters and other corporate offices to help at shipping hubs struggling to handle record demand.

Although, both UPS and FedEx expected a bump in deliveries during this holiday season, they are struggling to keep up with huge volume. UPS had expected volumes of more than 700 million packages, a 14% increase from last year, while FedEx predicted a 10% increase.

According to an analysis of millions of packages by software developer ShipMatrix Inc., on-time delivery rates for UPS ground, adjusted for weather and other unavoidable delays, fell to 96.3% last week while FedEx Ground's hit 96.9%, WSJ reports. That was an improvement from about 95% at both companies on the same week in 2015. On-time delivery rates usually average between 98% and 99% during the rest of the year.