UPS Inc. has set up its own dry ice production and will provide portable, super-cold freezers to its health care customers as the courier prepares for the massive rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.

FedEx Corp. and UPS Inc. are girding for their biggest test yet in the e-commerce era, with “Christmas Creep” pushing the holiday shopping season ever earlier and stretching the limits of shipping networks already strained by the COVID-19 pandemic.

FedEx Corp. is pledging to avoid transportation logjams when a massive operation begins to deliver a coronavirus vaccine.

Shippers probably will pay more for freight heading into 2021 after the pandemic lockdown drove many small truckers out of business and cargo demand rebounds faster than the economy, C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. CEO Bob Biesterfeld said.

FedEx Corp. is looking at using small self-flying cargo planes to serve remote areas after experimenting with a technology startup on autonomous aircraft, CEO Fred Smith said.

UPS Inc. said it will hire more than 100,000 seasonal workers to help handle an expected avalanche of holiday packages from online orders this year as shoppers avoid stores during the coronavirus pandemic.

FedEx Corp. plans to hire about 70,000 seasonal workers to handle the holiday surge of packages, a 27% increase from last year’s peak, in what is expected to be an unprecedented level of delivery demand.

UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp., riding high from record package deliveries amid the coronavirus pandemic, are moving on to their next objective: showing investors they can boost profit in the approaching onslaught of the holidays.

FedEx Corp. is joining a rush to apply extra holiday fees on high-volume shippers as couriers brace for a new jump in residential deliveries during the year-end peak season.

United Parcel Service Inc. will apply hefty surcharges on its biggest customers during the holiday peak season to help manage an avalanche of residential deliveries spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.