UPS is one of the major players in international logistics. Can you describe what UPS is and what the company is all about?
As a global leader in logistics, UPS offers a broad range of solutions including the transportation of packages and freight which helps to facilitate international trade. UPS serves more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, delivering more than 24.3 million packages and documents every day. The company's total revenue amounted to US$ 91 billion in 2023. In everything we do, we focus on our purpose: “Moving our world forward by delivering what matters.”
How important is Germany for UPS's European and international activities?
UPS has been operating in Germany since 1976; in 2026 we will be celebrating our 50th anniversary. Germany was actually our first location outside of North America and Germany is our largest market outside the USA We have a comprehensive European service portfolio, combining local expertise with our international strength and high quality standards. With around 20,000 employees we operate 73 Small Package facilities and 12 Supply Chain Solutions locations, including over 60,000 square meters of warehouse space in Germany.
Why in particular is Germany so important for UPS?
UPS operates at the airports in Berlin, Cologne, and Munich, but the Cologne/Bonn Airport (CGN) plays a major role for the global smart UPS logistic network. The Cologne air hub is the largest UPS facility outside the USA and the central air hub for UPS in Europe. Most nights of the week, volume is flown in from around the world, including the USA, Asia, the Middle East, and of course, cities all over Europe. Volume is sorted at an impressive capacity of up to 190,000 packages per hour, and then sent on its way. Operating during the night is essential for us and our customers. For example, a package that is picked up in Munich and is destined for New York is first brought by air transport to Cologne and then transferred to the aircraft that came from and is going back to Philadelphia – all within the space of a few hours at night. This allows us to deliver that package by as early as 9:00 AM the next morning – and from Cologne and the 500km region around Cologne, a package can be delivered to anywhere in the continental USA in the course of the next working day.
Which areas provide room for transatlantic cooperation in the logistics industry?
The TTC is a great opportunity for the EU and the USA to advance their trade and investment relationship, deepen their regulatory cooperation and sustain the multilateral rules-based trading system. UPS sees opportunities for cooperation in priority areas such as: global trade challenges, climate and clean tech, data governance and technology platforms as well as the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) access to and use of digital technologies.
From your business standpoint, what can be done to improve Germany as a business location?
The development of international e-commerce places new and growing demands on economic operators and national customs authorities alike. For Germany as a foreign trade location, the transparent and EU-wide harmonized customs procedures are an important competitive factor.
Against this background, we, as the world’s largest customs broker, expressly welcome the stipulations made in the coalition agreement of the current federal government on faster procedures and better equipment for customs. Another key initiative is the envisaged – and long overdue – reform of import taxes to align the national practice with more efficient processes in neighboring countries. Frictional losses in the processes and unclear or disadvantageous procedures lead to logistics flows being relocated to neighboring countries. Politics should provide reliable frameworks that facilitate the transition of economic activities by providing long-term perspectives along stringent market economy principles.
What are the major challenges of tomorrow's logistics?
One of the largest challenges is delivering in an environmentally friendly way. UPS’s German delivery fleet comprises over 3,100 vehicles and more than 2,900 vehicles of service partners, including numerous electric and hybrid vehicles. As an innovation-driven company, we are committed to reducing our impact on the environment and supporting the communities we serve around the world. UPS has developed various sustainable delivery solutions. As a bridging technology for the "last mile", UPS has had more than 130 7.5t diesel trucks converted into e-vehicles and also pioneered the use of cargo bikes for parcel delivery. Still, in order to drive the transition to sustainable deliveries forward, reliable providers of alternative vehicles and the necessary infrastructure are needed, be it bike paths for cargo bikes or charging infrastructure for e-vehicles.
UPS has put emphasis on its sustainability goals and social impact. Could you tell us more about your sustainability strategies and targets?
UPS has set itself the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. In Germany, UPS has been sourcing exclusively renewable electricity for years. As soon as 2025, 40% of all fuel used in ground operations will come from alternative or CO2-reduced sources. We currently operate more than 13,000 alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles worldwide. In Germany, we will only buy electric package cars.
UPS traditionally relies on its “rolling laboratory” approach to validate alternative vehicle concepts in daily operations and work with manufacturers on new sustainable developments. In 2012, we launched a special project in Hamburg: UPS City Logistics – the delivery of packages by cargo bikes, e-bikes or on foot by handcart in inner cities. Meanwhile we have a cargo bike fleet of over 110 vehicles: not only in big cities like Hamburg, Cologne, and Munich, but also in smaller cities like Westerstede, Lippstadt, and Paderborn. We are currently expanding this project further in Germany and internationally. Also, some of our service partners already adopted this concept and use cargo bikes too, for example in Vienna.
Is there a particular challenge that logistics service providers have to master these days beside sustainability?
Yes. There are very special packages that we must observe particularly closely, be able to find them in an instant, and ensure very specific transport requirements: healthcare products. From urgently-needed medicines to new biologics or implantable medical devices, our customers are innovating like never before. This creates a need for a perfect delivery service. Thus, UPS Healthcare has expanded and upgraded its UPS Premier service across Europe to meet the evolving needs of critical time- and temperature-sensitive healthcare shipments. In 2021, UPS Healthcare invested in more than 36,000 square meters of cold chain storage and freezer capacity in several countries, including Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands. Last year, in Giessen, we opened our first German branch specializing specifically in healthcare products. This new healthcare logistics center has a GMP and GDP-certified area of 27,200 square meters. Germany is becoming a central hub for healthcare logistics for us.
As one of the world’s leading logistics companies, can you describe to what degree the global security situation, keyword Russian war of aggression and Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, has affected UPS’s business processes?
For us, the top priority is the safety of our employees. This applies in the context of the war in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. Of equal importance to us are our customers, and therefore the resilience of our global network to ensure the continued reliability of supply chains.
Through all the crisis situations of recent decades, UPS has played a central role in providing vital supplies to communities, including hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines, to a wide range of European countries and global markets. In this regard, Germany, and in particular CGN, is central as a logistics hub for maintaining global supply chains, including the efficient and safe movement of goods during crises.
The war in Ukraine, in turn, poses challenges for all economic actors and citizens, ranging from supply chain disruptions to rising energy prices. In this context, UPS recognizes its role in providing reliable logistics in an environment of increasing uncertainties. Although UPS does not offer regular package delivery services in Ukraine, our Logistics Emergency Team (LET) is fully operational and staffed with UPSers who are working daily with the UN Logistics Cluster to stand up humanitarian supply chains all over the world. The LET team essentially coordinates with every relief agency operating on the ground, providing customs clearance, warehousing, and coordination of transportation movements.
