SACRAMENTO, Calif — The countdown to Christmas is on, and holiday cards and gift packages are on the move.
The U.S. Postal Service said this time of year is their Super Bowl.
"For the holiday season, we're expecting as a company to do about 7.2 billion packages," said Renee Chaney, executive plant manager in Sacramento for USPS.
This holiday season, the postal service expects to process and deliver 200 million packages per week for the two weeks leading up to Christmas.
To handle the intense volumes of mail, it's all about automation.
"For here, we have the large parcel sorter behind me which sorts about 9,000 to 10,000 parcels per hour," said Chaney.
There are also four additional parcel sorters that do about 5,000 to 6,000 parcels per hour.
"So what this does for us, instead of having to work the mail manually, we can work about 12-times faster by putting it on a machine," said Chaney.
However, manpower helps too.
Across the country, the postal service also continues to hire 10,000 people to get them through peak season, which is October to January.
One date to remember is Dec. 20. It's the last day the U.S. Postal Service said it can guarantee Christmas delivery. However, that was just for Express Mail. The deadline for priority mail was Dec. 18.
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