THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ***** Thursday, December 3, 2020 |A
on-time performance during
the week of Thanksgiving was
90.6% compared with 97.6% for
FedEx.
The UPS spokesman said
that so far the company is
pleased with how its network
has performed in handling re-
cord volume.
According to ShipMatrix,
UPS picked up 81% of packages
on the day they were ready be-
tween Nov. 15 and Nov. 21,
compared with 95.4% for
FedEx’s Ground network, which
handles most of the company’s
e-commerce volume.
Some of the shippers whose
pickups were restricted said
there have been some delays
due to the high number of on-
line orders but that they were
managing them well.
An L.L. Bean spokeswoman
said that while there have
been delays for pickups at a
few of its stores, UPS is “ac-
tively picking up packages
from our warehouse facility
and our retail locations daily.”
“We’re actively working
with UPS to best manage cus-
tomer deliveries,” a Macy’s
spokeswoman said.
Some retailers are warning
customers to shop early and
expect longer delivery times
this holiday season.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
tells online shoppers to place
their orders by Dec. 4 if they
want items to arrive by Christ-
mas using its standard ship-
ping option. A spokeswoman
said the date is “to encourage
early shopping given current
challenges surrounding parcel
capacity.”then slip a bit until another
big increase in the week be-
fore Christmas.
“We are happy with the
performance of our parcel de-
livery network following the
higher cyber week demand,” a
Gap spokeswoman said.
“Knowing the unique con-
straints the industry is facing
this peak season, we worked
with our carriers early on to
collectively build a strategic
plan of execution.”
A Nike spokeswoman said
the sportswear maker expects
“the majority of these orders
to meet estimated delivery
dates and are communicating
with consumers any changes
in delivery.”
Some shipping consultants
said they expected such limits
would be imposed temporarily
if retailers exceeded their al-
lowance for packages. Earlier
this year, delivery companies
were overwhelmed as extra
trailers full of parcels arrived
at some facilities and waited
to be unloaded due to the un-
expected surge in e-commerce
and employee absences due to
the coronavirus.
FedEx and UPS both pre-
pared their customers for
tight capacity for this holiday
season, as consumers, fearful
of venturing out to stores due
to the virus, are stocking up
on household essentials from
online merchants at the same
time the holiday shopping sea-
son kicks off.
The combination is ex-
pected to create a surplus of
as many as seven million daily
packages between Thanksgiv-
ing and Christmas, according
to ShipMatrix Inc., a software
provider that analyzes ship-
ping data. FedEx’s big retail
customers include Walmart
Inc. while UPS counts Ama-
zon.com Inc. among its biggest
shippers.
Some retailers, meanwhile,
continue to push for more or-
ders. Walmart plans to offer
Continued from Page One
Delivery firms have had to hire tens of thousands of workers.CHRISTOPHER DILTS/BLOOMBERG NEWSUPS Cuts
Off Some
Retailers
free shipping on all online or-
ders for members of its paid
Walmart+ service. By remov-
ing a threshold of $35 for free
shipping, the program will be
similar to Amazon Prime.
UPS said it is working
closely with its largest ship-
pers to steer volume to loca-
tions with available capacity
and making sure that large
customers know how much
room is available.
“It is critical that UPS and
its customers execute the plans
built through our collabora-
tion,” a spokesman said. Hesaid UPS also wants to main-
tain the network for other cus-
tomers, including small- and
medium-size businesses and for
medical shipments, including
Covid-19 vaccine distribution.
FedEx and UPS for months
have been processing packages
at levels more common during
the Christmas season and
were preparing to layer an-
other surge of orders on top of
that. They have responded
with restrictions on capacity
and surcharges to offset
higher costs from hiring tens
of thousands of workers and
renting extra equipment.
Data collected by analysts
at Citi showed UPS’s averageFedEx and UPS
both prepared their
customers for tight
capacity.Novavax spokeswoman said the
company is aware of the foreign
threats and is working with
“appropriate government agen-
cies and commercial cybersecu-
rity experts.” Genexine is look-
ing into the matter but hasn’t
found evidence of any hacking
attempt, a spokesman said.
AstraZeneca declined to
comment.
North Korea, Russia, China
and Iran have all backed hack-Shin Poong and Celltrion
said they had received hacking
attacks but hadn’t detected any
damage, spokesmen from both
companies said. The Shin
Poong spokesman said the at-
tacks were carried out over
email. The Celltrion spokesman
said the attacks had acceler-
ated in the second half of 2020.
Johnson & Johnson remains
vigilant against threats to its
data, a spokesman said. AIt wasn’t known whether
the hackers succeeded in swip-
ing useful information. But
North Korea has coordinated
attacks on the six companies
since August, the people said.
The attacks contained digital
fingerprints used in other North
Korean campaigns against the
State Department and South
Korea’s unification ministry,
such as the use of the same IP
addresses, the people said.nage, they say.
North Korea has made re-
peated claims that it has zero
coronavirus cases.
A more likely North Korean
use for stolen intelligence on
Covid-19 vaccines would be to
sell it to a third-party drug-
maker, likely in China, said
Robert Potter, head of Internet
2.0, a cybersecurity company
based in Canberra, Australia,
who monitors Pyongyang’s
hacking behavior.
Another option, he added,
would be to leverage knowl-
edge of the targeted compa-
nies’ networks from the at-
tacks to demand payouts in
return for restoring access to
encrypted files or crash a
company’s website.ers seeking to infiltrate com-
panies working on Covid-
treatments, according to a U.K.
assessment this year.
North Korea has become
one of the world’s most elite
global hacking outfits. Pyong-
yang hasn’t commented on
any hacks involving Covid-
vaccine developers.
Even if North Korea suc-
ceeded in pilfering Covid-
treatment details, the Kim Jong
Un regime would have limited
direct use for it, Pyongyang
watchers say.
With rudimentary manufac-
turing facilities and modest
health-care infrastructure, it is
doubtful the country could pro-
duce treatment from blueprints
obtained through cyber espio-WORLD NEWS
SEOUL—North Korean hack-
ers have targeted at least six
pharmaceutical companies in
the U.S., the U.K. and South
Korea working on Covid-
treatments, people familiar
with the matter said, as the re-
gime seeks sensitive informa-
tion it could sell or weaponize.
The firms include previ-
ously unreported targets in
the U.S.: Johnson & Johnson
and Maryland-based Novavax
Inc., which are working on ex-
perimental vaccines, the peo-
ple said. The list also includes
three South Korean companies
with Covid-19 drugs in earlier
clinical trials, Genexine Inc.,
Shin Poong Pharmaceutical Co.
and Celltrion Inc., they added.
North Korea had also tried
infiltrating U.K.-based Astra-
Zeneca PLC, whose vaccine,
co-developed with the Univer-
sity of Oxford, has been shown
to be as much as 90% effective
and is seeking emergency ap-
proval, the people said. On
Friday, Reuters reported that
suspected North Korean hack-
ers had tried to break into the
systems of AstraZeneca.
BYANDREWJEONG
North Korea Hacks Covid-19 Drugmakers
Targets include big
Western companies
working on developing
treatments for virus
North Korean hackers are accused of targeting drugmakers
including AstraZeneca, whose Covid-19 vaccine is handled at the
Serum Institute of India in Pune, left, and Novavax.FRANCIS MASCARENHAS/REUTERSriod, including by ski tourists,
could lead to another rebound
of contagion.
Austria’s ski lifts, which the
country considers a form of
public transport, will open on
Dec. 24 with limits on the
number of users. The hit to
Austria’s Alpine tourism in-
dustry during one of its busi-
est periods of the year is likely
to be severe.
Italy, Germany and France
won’t open their Alpine ski
lifts over the holiday, but have
expressed fear that tens ofthousands of people could
cross the border to ski in Aus-
tria or Switzerland. Switzer-
land, where some resorts al-
ready are operating, plans to
open spots over Christmas
with restrictions.
Italian ski resorts are in-
censed that they must stay
closed while their competitors
on Swiss sides of the same
mountain regions are open for
business.
“It’s unthinkable that in It-
aly there are some rules and
in other countries there aredifferent ones,” said Marco
Michielli, president of a tour-
ism association in the Veneto
region in Italy’s northeast.
Without skiers, the Alpine
regions of several countries
face the loss of vital income. In
many Austrian and Swiss ski
resorts, the Christmas and New
Year period accounts for about
30% of winter tourism revenue.
Tourism, sport and leisure
account for 15% of Austria’s
gross domestic product, ac-
cording to the country’s gov-
ernment.FROM PAGE ONE
European governments took
a step closer to shutting down
the Christmas ski season in
the Alps, in an attempt to pre-
vent vacationers from reignit-
ing the continent’s Covid-
pandemic like last summer.
Pressure from Germany, Italy
and France led the Alpine na-
tion of Austria on Wednesday
to pledge to keep its hotels and
restaurants closed until Jan. 7
and impose quarantine on trav-
elers from European countries
with high infection rates.
The decision by Austria,
Europe’s biggest destination
for international ski tourism,
follows a diplomatic clash over
whether it is safe to let people
ski the Alps. The measures
make ski trips to Austria ef-
fectively impossible for most
Europeans.
Berlin, Rome and Paris have
pressured Austria to join a
continentwide crackdown onski trips. Alpine tourism was a
major spreader of coronavirus
infections in early 2020. After
Europe slowed infections to a
trickle with strict lockdowns
this spring, a return to mass
travel for summer vacations
contributed greatly to a resur-
gence in cases.
Infections are declining in
much of Europe, but deaths
from Covid-19 remain high.
Many European governments
fear that an excessive relax-
ation of behavior during the
Christmas and New Year pe-ByRuth Bender
in Berlin andGiovanni
Legoranoin RomeEurope Curbs Profitable Ski Tourism to Control Virus
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