UPS, the shipping company with its own fleet of aircraft, is offering its pilots early retirement buyouts in response to falling demand for air cargo services.
In a statement to FreightWaves, the company said that it regularly assesses its business and adjusts to ensure better service to customers, adding that 鈥渁s part of our effort to efficiently manage our airline, we are offering a voluntary separation benefit to eligible UPS pilots鈥.
Aero Crew News has alleged that the company is offering a lump sum of $357,000 to its pilots.
UPS鈥 United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing for Q2 2023 showed that the average volume of daily packages was down 6.4% in H1 2023 as compared to H1 2022.
鈥淚n both [Q1 and Q2] periods, challenging external conditions, including persistent inflation, declines in U.S. manufacturing production and changes in consumer spending contributed to overall volume declines,鈥 the SEC filing read. It added that, in Q2 2023, 鈥渧olume was also negatively impacted by uncertainty around the results of our labor negotiations with the Teamsters鈥.
However, UPS expected the 鈥測ear-over-year decline in average daily volume to be lower in the second half than in the first half鈥, and hence for daily package volumes to increase in H2 2023.
In terms of international airfreight revenues, UPS said that it 鈥渄ecreased approximately $365 million for the quarter (down $785 million year to date) as customer demand remained weak, particularly on Asia export lanes, and capacity growth continued to outpace demand鈥.
鈥淭hese factors drove down the rates we charge for services in both the quarter and year-to-date periods and we anticipate that they will continue to pressure rates through the second half of the year,鈥 the company continued.
