U.S. Airspace Re-Opens; Airfreight Moves Slowly
Although major airfreight companies including United Parcel Service and Fed Ex said they were working toward resuming normal operations, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta said that shipments of cargo -- including mail -- in the bellies of passenger planes would temporarily be suspended.
"...I must caution everyone that a system as diverse and complex as ours cannot be brought back up instantly,” Mineta said. “We will re-open airports and resume flights on a case-by-case basis, only after they implement our more stringent levels of security. This phased approach will assure the highest levels of safety, which remains our primary goal.”
The Federal Aviation Administration enacted stricter security measures, including the end of curbside luggage check-in. Some airports are conducting complete security sweeps and placing federal officers at security checkpoints, Bloomberg reported.
Earlier in the day, Atlanta-based UPS told Transport Topics that it has about 200 planes ready to begin moving airfreight once it is given clearance to fly again.
Since all planes were grounded on Tuesday, the company has moved packages by ground. It ships 13.5 million packages each day, and on a normal day, 2 million of those are shipped by air.
“We have an integrated air-to-ground system, so we can grow to fit,” said UPS spokesman Dan McMackin. “We are running as close to normal as possible.”
McMackin said that it was picking up and delivering packages to every city in the country except for lower Manhattan and some military installations.
UPS said it has temporarily suspended its delivery time guarantees because of the events, but most customers are not seeing a difference in their service. It predicted that it would have its backlog of Next Day packages delivered by Friday morning.
The Postal Service said it was making alternative plans, including working with Amtrak, to move mail that is usually shipped by air.
“We have expanded our ground network," said Mark Saunders, spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service. "We have been making full use of our entire fleet of 210,000 ground vehicles. In addition, we have contracted with 6,000 to 7,000 trucking companies to carry U.S. mail."
The USPS carries 650 million pieces of mail per day, nearly 20 to 25% of those are normally carried by airplanes, Saunders said. Currently, customers should expect delays of a day or more, Saunders said.
FedEx Express announced that it was repositioning its aircraft on Thursday morning and hoped to resume air operations by the end of the day.
“We are optimistic that we will be able to resume near normal operations [Friday] to the extent that safety precautions and regulatory agencies allow,” the company’s press release said.
All of FedEx’s ground subsidiaries were operating normally, with the exceptions of portions of Manhattan and Washington, D.C.
Airborne Express also announced that as of Thursday afternoon, it had returned to regular service.
"Due to security considerations, service will be dependent upon the regulations made by individual airports across the country as a result of more stringent FAA requirements," the company said in a release.
Airborne warned that heightened security could delay shipments, and also said that there was no delivery service across the U.S.-Canada or the U.S.-Mexico borders.
Several commercial airlines, including Continental, Northwest, American, United, Delta and Southwest, said they would not immediately resume normal flights, news services reported.
(Click here for the full text of Secretary Mineta's comments.)
(Click here for the full press release from UPS.)
(Click here for the full press release from FedEx.)
(Click here for the full press release from Airborne Express.)
