by Walter Brasch
It’s been about two weeks since the news
media began smothering the nation with stories about UPS and FedEx delivering
packages late during the holiday season.
A short shopping season of less than 30
days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, combined with extraordinary numbers of
deliveries and extreme weather problems caused thousands of packages not to be
delivered by Christmas. For some media, this was the top story.
FedEx says it delivered more than 275
million packages in that one month period. UPS doesn’t say how many it
delivered or how many were late. But it does say that if customers sent their
packages by ground and hoped they would arrive by Christmas, the cut-off date
was December 11. For air service, UPS temporarily added 29 planes to its fleet.
Understandably, there are several hundred
thousand senders and receivers who are unhappy their packages were not
delivered by Christmas. However, people got their gifts, even if a day or two
late.
