UPS plane crash at Louisville hub
A UPS cargo plane crashed Tuesday at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport near the company’s largest package-sorting and air hub, known as Worldport. The aircraft involved was an MD-11, a model UPS operates as part of its domestic fleet.
Worldport at a glance
The Worldport sorting complex occupies roughly the equivalent of 90 football fields at Louisville’s airport. It routinely processes about 2 million packages a day and, during peak periods, can handle up to 416,000 packages and documents per hour.
By cargo weight, Louisville ranks third among U.S. airports, behind Memphis and Anchorage, according to Airports Council International World.
A major local employer
Approximately 20,000 people work at Worldport, making UPS the largest employer in the Louisville area. Local officials say the company is tightly woven into the community — many residents know someone who works overnight sorting packages, in maintenance, or as flight crew.
“My heart goes out to everybody at UPS because this is a UPS town,” Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said, noting how many locals have family or friends who work for the company.
Flights, operations and geography
Worldport supports more than 300 daily takeoffs or landings and has parking space for about 125 aircraft. A UPS time-lapse video shows planes taxiing to dedicated cargo gates, workers unloading unit load devices, and packages moving along conveyors to be sorted and reloaded for onward transport.
Louisville’s central location places it within roughly four hours of flight time to about 95% of the U.S. population, and the hub supports shipments to roughly 200 countries worldwide.
Fleet and equipment
UPS operates six types of aircraft in U.S. service. The fleet includes 27 MD-11s — the model involved in the crash — as well as the Airbus A300-600 and several Boeing models (757-200, 767-300, 747-400 and 747-8).
Growth and recent investments
UPS began building Louisville into an air cargo hub in the 1980s and opened the Worldport sorting complex in 2002. The company cited Louisville’s central location and generally moderate weather as factors in its choice.
Recent investments include a $220 million hangar completed last year large enough to shelter two 747s side by side, which significantly expanded UPS’s maintenance footprint there. In 2022 UPS announced plans to add eight new flight simulators, and expansion plans have included additional buildings for UPS Healthcare, which handles clinical trial shipments and other medical logistics.
Company background
UPS traces its origins to Seattle in 1907 when two teenagers founded American Messenger Co.; the United Parcel Service name appeared in 1919. The company received Federal Aviation Administration approval to operate its own aircraft in 1988. Headquartered in Atlanta, UPS employs roughly 490,000 people worldwide.
Correction: The facility covers the equivalent of 90 football fields (previously misstated as 10).
