How does Santa Claus ACTUALLY deliver Christmas?

Generation Logistics reveals the logistics behind Santa delivering Christmas

Despite working only one night of the year, delivering Christmas to the whole of the world is no easy job. With around 310,344,828 houses with children worldwide that celebrate Christmas that Santa needs to visit, his annual delivery drop is a logistical conundrum, and one that requires much thought and planning in advance.

And now, new findings from Generation Logistics, have revealed the maths behind Santa’s festive journey around the world, revealing just how much (or little) time he has from home to home, and how fast he would need to deliver Christmas to children around the world.

According to a recent report2, Santa has a total of 34 hours to deliver Christmas to the people who celebrate it, due to the different time zones and the variations in sunset and sunrise times between locations and latitudes.

Taking the 310,344,828 houses into account, this means that Santa needs to get in, deliver presents and get out again, to 152,130 households per minute, 9,127,789 per hour, or 2,536 per second!3 That works out to an average of 0.00039 microseconds4 to accomplish everything needed per household.

In terms of travelling around the world, Santa would need to travel 160,000,000km, equating to 99,419.391 miles5.

So, Santa’s sleigh would need to travel at a groundbreaking speed of 4,142,475mph in order to travel around the world to the countries and households that celebrate Christmas - that’s 544,963% higher than the speed of sound6.

But, if anyone can do it it’s Santa, and the people’s spirit of Christmas helping him along!

It’s not just Santa Claus that is delivering presents of course, but also the many delivery drivers and logistics and warehousing workers behind businesses across the country. In fact, 500 million parcels are expected to be packed into vehicles by Santa’s real little helpers this December in time for the Christmas festivities7.

Commenting on the research, Bethany Windsor, Programme Director at Generation Logistics, says: “With Christmas around the corner, many people will be ordering parcels online ready to gift to their friends and family, without second thought about how they may get to their door. You may not think it, but Santa really is the logistics king of the world - he delivers parcels worldwide to many different households year after year, and very rarely slips up! We wanted to conduct this research to see just how big a task this really is, and the results speak for themselves.

“Christmas is a real logistics challenge and it goes to show the amount of work and number of people involved that are responsible for delivering all the festive treats we need to our homes, with a huge 500 million parcels in lorries on the roads this month alone! It’s not just the delivery drivers, but the planners, project managers, warehouse workers and many more who make Santa’s job become a reality!”

For more information on how you too could enjoy a career in logistics, please visit: https://generationlogistics.org/find-your-future/