With ever-increasing growth in international and domestic express driving demand, UPS is moving to expand its technologically-advanced air package sorting hub, Worldport, at Louisville. To be implemented over the next five years, the mega hub will boost its sorting capacity by 60%, to 487,000 packages per hour.

Work on the $1 billion project will begin later this year with a target date for completion of 2010. When finished, Worldport will occupy 5.1 million square feet, which is the equivalent of 113 football fields. Importantly, new ramp space will be built to handle A380 and 747-400 cargo planes presently on order for the company.

UPS has seen its Next Day Air package volume grow on an average of 5% since 2003. International import volumes into the U.S. have grown at a double-digit rate for the past four years.

FedEx will add 400,000 square feet to its existing sorting facility and build a new 175,000 square foot secondary building for sortation, as well. Two maintenance buildings will be constructed and an 8,000 square foot building for ground support equipment will be built as well for ground support equipment. Indianapolis is the second-largest domestic FedEx Express hub, behind Memphis.