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Above Cargo plane crashes at company’s global aviation hub on Tuesday kentuckywhich killed at least 12 people, will temporarily disrupt supply chains and result in delays to some shipping.
But UPS says it has contingency plans, and experts say the impact should be clear before the peak holiday season.
The plane crashed while taking off on Tuesday evening honolulu From UPS Worldport, UPS’s largest shipping hub louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Sorting of packages at the center was stopped late on Tuesday night and this stoppage continued on Wednesday also. According to a UPS fact sheet, approximately 416,000 packages can be sorted at the facility per hour.
UPS has not released any details about how many or what types of packages were on board the plane.
Ed Anderson, professor of supply chain and operations management for the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, estimates the average number of packages per plane leaving the Louisville shipping hub is 10,000 to 13,000.
consumers People who want to check on their UPS packages can wait to hear from the company or view tracking details online. UPS has a claims process for lost or damaged packages, but it’s unclear whether people and businesses with packages in the downed plane will have to go through that process. UPS will likely reach out to affected customers in the coming days. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Tom Goldsby, a professor of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, said UPS will increase flights to its regional hubs to compensate for the Worldport closure.
“The hub will remain overburdened until critical operations in Louisville are back at full capacity,” he said.
UPS said in a statement that it had contingency plans in place to help ensure that shipments reach their final destinations as quickly as conditions allow, but did not provide specifics on what the plans were.
Goldsby said UPS will be under pressure to resolve any delays before the peak holiday season.
“This is an issue they want to resolve quickly, but they have to do their due diligence to resolve the current crisis,” he said.
He himself was expecting a UPS package to be shipped through Worldport from Oregon today, but got a message that it would have to be rescheduled.
“I understand the situation and will happily accept it when it comes,” he said, adding that others hoping for a package will need patience. “People and businesses don’t have a lot of understanding (about the supply chain). We don’t expect there to be a disaster or a bad day in our logistics operations.”
The accident comes as UPS is working on a transformation, focusing less on Amazon deliveries and more on business-to-business deliveries. In its most recent earnings report last week, the company said it had cut 48,000 jobs so far this year and closed some buildings as part of its turnaround. Its third quarter results were better than expectations.