Boosted by an increase in online sales, FedEx and UPS are expected to deliver a combined 947 million packages between Black Friday and Christmas Eve.
And if operations at the FedEx distribution center in Hawthorne are any indication, the flow of Christmas gifts, office supplies, legal documents and other goods is still moving hard and heavy.
Early Tuesday, workers at the 120,000-square-foot Prairie Avenue facility were busy sorting packages and loading them into trucks lined up along a slow moving conveyor belt. The packages were then delivered to destinations throughout the area. Drivers use an algorithm that maps out the most efficient delivery routes.
"The tension is high, but we try to do our best to provide good customer service," said Daniel Carias, one of the center's many couriers who makes local deliveries. "Its all a matter of teamwork."
The Hawthorne facility is one of 12 Los Angeles-area FedEx centers and it's the largest, with 280 employees, according to David Egure, the center's senior manager of operations.
"We normally handle 30,000 to 35,000 packages a day, but during the Christmas season it's 40,000 to 45,000 packages a day," he said. "FedEx expects to deliver a total of 317 million packages between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. That's a 12.4 percent increase over last year."
Rival shipper UPS expects to deliver more than 630 million packages between the extended period of Black Friday and New Year's Eve for an increase of more than 10 percent.
Both companies tied the increase to a rise in online shopping.
"The shift in consumer shopping patterns, fueled by the rise of e-commerce, continues to drive our volume," FedEx Corp. CEO Frederick W. Smith said in a statement.
Alan Gershenhorn, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for UPS, echoed that.
"Consumer preference for online commerce is driving tremendous growth opportunities for UPS," he said.
Figures from the National Retail Federation show that nearly 53 percent of consumers planned to shop online this holiday season. And 21.4 percent of smartphone owners will use their mobile devices to purchase holiday merchandise.
Both shipping companies boosted their employee base with seasonal workers to help manage the holiday rush.
FedEx hired 50,000 seasonal workers and UPS added about 95,000.
On Tuesday, workers in one area of the FedEx facility in Hawthorne were busy sorting letter-sized packages and placing them into bins while others sorted bigger packages as they moved along the conveyor belt to be loaded into the appropriate trucks.
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The packages had arrived earlier in the morning at Los Angeles International Airport before being delivered to the FedEx center.
"We make our local deliveries in the morning and then we pick up new packages for delivery in the afternoon between 2:30 and 3 p.m.," Egure said. "The trucks return here between 5:30 and 6:30. Then the freight is processed, containerized and taken to LAX where it's flown to our hubs throughout the U.S. and delivered to the various destinations."
FedEx has more than 650 planes that make deliveries to more than 220 countries and territories throughout the globe.
The company's main U.S. hubs are in Memphis, Fort Worth, Indianapolis and Oakland.
It's all about getting packages to where they're going — fast.
"Eighty-three percent of our packages get delivered within three days," Egure said.
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