UPS Heads Into Peak Season With Half The Amazon Volume; Delivery Trucks Report Having Legroom For The First Time

ATLANTA—UPS is heading into its first holiday peak season since cutting its Amazon volume in half, executives said Tuesday, leaving the inside of the company's famous brown trucks with something drivers have not seen in late November in years: room.

According to Supply Chain Dive, UPS expects its average daily U.S. volume to climb about 25% from the third quarter to the fourth, but to dip slightly year over year because of the planned Amazon reduction. The carrier still projects fourth-quarter U.S. revenue to rise 3%, helped by higher revenue per package and growth from small businesses and healthcare shippers. Small and medium-sized businesses made up 35.1% of U.S. volume in the third quarter. UPS plans to hire 100,000 seasonal workers, and its CFO said less difficult volume means renting fewer trailers.

Inside a fictional package car in suburban Atlanta, a mid-sized box containing a heated blanket said the change was noticeable. "Last year I was wedged between a dog bed and something that smelled like a candle," the box said. "This year I have my own shelf. I can see out the window. I am thinking about taking up a hobby."

"I have my own shelf. I can see out the window. I am thinking about taking up a hobby."

Drivers said the extra space took some getting used to. "In December you usually load the truck like a game of Tetris played by an angry person," said a fictional driver with 19 years on the route. "Now there is floor. I found a pen from 2014. I found a sandwich. I do not know whose sandwich."

Small business shippers, now a larger share of the network, said they were enjoying the attention. "For years I felt like I was shipping out of somebody else's garage," said the fictional owner of a candle company in Savannah. "Now the driver knows my name. He asked about my wicks."

Logistics analysts said the strategy, which industry insiders call "better volume," is part of a broader trend in which carriers stop trying to move everything and start trying to move the things that pay. "It is like a restaurant that stops doing the all-you-can-eat buffet," said a fictional parcel consultant. "Fewer plates. Better plates. The plates are healthcare and they need a signature."

The company also said it is launching Protected Delivery, which requires the recipient to share a PIN with the courier, a feature that fictional porch pirates described as "rude, honestly."

At press time, the heated blanket had been delivered, and said it already missed the truck.

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