UPS takes steps to expand Latin America air cargo capacity

UPS announced this week that it is expanding its express air network capacity in Latin America.

According to company officials, the company is replacing a Boeing 757 narrow-body aircraft with a new and larger B-767 wide-body freighter, which increases cargo capacity by 50 percent on UPS’s 19 weekly flights into Central and South America.

These flights originate from UPS’s Americas hub in Miami and operate into Quito, Ecuador; Guayaquil, Ecuador; Bogota, Colombia; Panama City, Panama; Guatemala City, Guatemala, and Managua, Nicaragua.

“Customer demand has driven the need to upsize aircraft,” said UPS Airlines Spokesman Mike Mangeot, in an interview. “We’ve seen some nice growth out of the Americas. The biggest benefits to our customers are capacity and the enhanced ability to tap into UPS’s expansive global transportation network. We can help them get more of their products—fish, textiles, flowers [among others]—to their customers.”

UPS said that the B-767 can carry a payload of 132,200 pounds, which is 50 percent more than a B-757—adding that those two aircraft are used “almost exclusively in the Americas for reasons of crew, operational and maintenance efficiency.”

And UPS noted high schedule reliability rate of both aircraft works well for exporters with tight supply chain and cold chain requirements.  UPS has 20 B-767s with 20 on order.

“From a UPS perspective, we are able to further grow the largest air express network in the Americas, and carry more revenue-producing express small-packages and air cargo,” said Mangeot.