Monday marks the start of the busiest mailing week of the year

With less than 10 days until Christmas, it’s coming down to crunch time for mail carriers throughout the Las Vegas Valley.

Monday marks the start of the busiest mailing week of the year for carriers like UPS, FedEx and the Postal Service and they’ve been encouraging gift-givers to start mailing their packages this week.

Tom Englund, store owner of The UPS Store in Henderson off North Green Valley Parkway, said six fewer days than last year between Thanksgiving and Christmas means it’s time to hustle.

“It sneaks up on you,” Englund said. “Thanksgiving fell late this year so it compacts everything into three weeks. I can’t speak for other stores, but in general, we see it get busier…so you see everybody scrambling.”

This week is the best time to ship out packages to ensure friends and family receive their gifts by Christmas Eve, according to mail carriers like UPS and Postal Service.

Depending on a package’s destination, UPS cautions customers to add an extra day of transit time if sending packages by third-day select or second-day air this week due to “extremely high volume.”

For U.S. deliveries by Christmas Eve, the last day to ship for UPS 3 Day Select is Thursday, UPS 2nd Day Air deadline is Friday while the last day to ship next day air is Dec. 23.

Between Nov. 29 through Dec. 30, UPS expects to deliver about 32 million packages and documents per day —60 percent more than its average, non-peak day of 20 million deliveries.

The last day to ship FedEx ground or home delivery is Monday and FedEx 2Day packages must be shipped off by Friday. Overnight deliveries have until Dec. 23 while same day delivery is available on Christmas Day with an additional fee of up to $50 per shipment.

‘Our Super Bowl’

Inside the Postal Service’s processing facility on East Post Road in Las Vegas, staff spent Thursday evening checking and sorting mail ready to be shipped out across the globe.

Terry Mullins, USPS senior plant manager, said after 6 p.m. is the busiest time for the warehouse, and especially during the holiday season as the volume of packages increase.

“We process between 125,000 to 150,000 a day, generally, but during the holiday season it’s upwards of 200,000,” Mullins said. “The volume keeps coming and we just keep processing.”

The mail carrier considers the mailing week between Monday and Sunday to be the busiest, with an estimated 2.5 billion pieces of mail to be processed and delivered. The Postal Service said Monday will be the peak day with more than 8.5 million customers predicted to visit its post offices nationwide.

“We consider it our Super Bowl of the year,” U.S. Postal Service spokesperson Rod Spurgeon said. “We look at the staffing that we have and projected mail volume to help us determine how many seasonal people we need per facility.”

He said the carrier hired 196 seasonal employees this year in Las Vegas to help with increased volume.

The recommended send-by dates for the Postal Service, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, for first-class mail is Friday, priority mail is Saturday and priority mail express is Dec. 23. Those shipping to Alaska and Hawaii have until Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, for first-class mail and Thursday for priority mail service and Saturday for priority mail express.

Contact Subrina Hudson at shudson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Follow @SubrinaH on Twitter.