Your UPS package was scheduled for delivery today and you’re waiting for signing, however, it didn’t arrive as it was supposed to be. When you tracked the shipping status, it says “Due to operating conditions, your package may be delayed”. What does this mean and when can you expect delivery?
A day later, when you checked again and it showed the same tracking result as well.
You’re confused about what kinds of “operating conditions” delay your parcel delivery, and you’re not sure if the package is lost, returned to sender, or still on its way to your destination.
Don’t worry about it too much. Your package doesn’t lose and is still on the way, but may arrive extra days later than originally expected.
“Due to operating conditions, your package may be delayed” is just a UPS broad statement of delay notice, which could mean a lot of things that cause a certain delay. Generally, this means there is an issue along the way, and your package is no longer being processed at the moment. Therefore, it could take more time to deliver to you.
Here are 6 common things that could disrupt the package from getting to its destination, like an overloaded package, weather, shortage of staff, etc. And thus the tracking status can look like this.
1. Overloaded Packages
UPS says, “Due to operating conditions, your package may be delayed” which typically means they’re not able to deliver your package due to the high volume of packages they’re handling during peak seasons (November-January). And usually, the delay time is 1 business day.
This is particularly common during peak seasons and holidays. UPS may experience higher than expected volume during that period and operate over capacity. Meanwhile, your local hub may also be overburdened.
2. Weather
Weather-related issues are another common reason that causes such delays. Bad weather like heavy snowfall, hurricanes, ice, etc will make the roads dangerous to drive on (especially at night) and may cause terminals to shut down. For example, UPS will consider the safety of the drivers of trucks and planes taking off and landing.
For safety reasons, UPS will have to slow down their delivery service at the receipt, in transit, or at the destination. Under such conditions, UPS may choose other routes to deliver the package, but as you can understand it can take longer than regular routes they use.
3. Short of Staff
It can also indicate UPS doesn’t have enough employees to complete the delivery task. As you have experienced, COVID-19 was widespread in 2020 and made many people sick. Many UPS workers stopped work and therefore your parcel had to take longer than normal to deliver.
Now COVID-19 is almost over, but your package may also be delayed in peak seasons due to ECommerce boom. More and more consumers prefer to buy online instead of in-store shopping which increases the UPS delivery package.
To solve this problem, UPS announced to hire more than 100,000 seasonal workers (drivers and package handlers) in Sep 2022.
4. Your Package Doesn’t Lose But Cannot Find Temporary
This can also be explained as your package is in the UPS hub but they cannot find it at the moment, and please be patient as they are looking for it.
You may also notice “Due to operating conditions, your package may be delayed” after the package has been scanned into your local hub from your tracking.
As you can expect, the package should be scanned again to be delivered to you soon but the turnout is the opposite, so something should have gone wrong there. Maybe UPS employees cannot find your package, and they don’t know what is going on.
5. Other Operational Conditions
There are other possible operating conditions that can lead to this tracking result. UPS needs to fix the issue and then can process your package.
Equipment Problems
- The conveyer belt is broken
- The package is stuck in the machine
- Truck/Plane has arrived late or broken
- Computer error
Employee Operation Issues
- The package is put in the incorrect conveyer belt
- The package is misplaced on the wrong truck or plane
- No people unload the truck or plane
Unforeseen Circumstances
- A traffic accident makes the driver stuck
- The warehouse is on fire
- …
6. Your Wrong Address or You’re Unavailable
Do you think maybe it’s your own problem? Maybe you put the wrong address or phone number for the receipt when ordering online.
This can easily happen when moving to a new home; you might forget to update the address. It’s therefore important to double check that the address you provide is correct before sending off any packages.
Also, it can happen if you’re unavailable when a courier driver attempts to make a delivery. As you know, you need to sign before the parcel is released to you. So when there’s nobody to sign, the courier would have no other choice but to leave and try again.
Final Thought
If your parcel is in the condition of “Due to operating conditions, your package may be delayed”, and you’re urgent to get it, you’d better call UPS by providing your name, tracking number, and complete address on the package. They may give you clarification and provide a new delivery time estimate.
