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Several customers awaiting deliveries of their new redesigned MacBook Pros are being told that their shipments are being delayed due to "mechanical" issues impacting UPS, a courier used by Apple to ship its devices worldwide.

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"A mechanical failure has caused a delay" is the message several customers are being told when they track their new MacBook Pro shipment. Customers on the MacRumors Forum are also reporting that UPS is sending emails to customers informing them of unknown mechanical failures and that estimated delivery dates will vary depending on the conditions on the ground.

The mechanical failures, possibly about aircraft, are causing shipments of MacBook Pros, and presumably, other consumer electronic devices, to be left stationary on the ground in cities in China. Some shipments are still on-the-ground in Shanghai and Seoul, South Korea, and publicly available flight records show few UPS flights scheduled to depart either city today, at the time of writing.

Cologne, Germany, serves as one of UPS' main hubs in Europe and is where MacBook Pro shipments are likely to arrive from Asia before being sent to customers across Europe. One UPS flight from Seoul to Cologne that was scheduled for later today has been canceled, as noted on Reddit. Customers are also sharing their frustrations on Twitter.

 
That explains why my shipment has been sitting in Shanghai for 2.5 days with it only saying “We are updating plans for your delivery” and other weird and vague tracking status notes such as “the package will be sent to your destination city.”
Surprised by UPS’s lack of contingency plans
 
Same issue impacting my watch shipment - currently in day 3 of its visit to Shanghai. It doesn't say there's a 'mechanical failure', just 'In transit', which is every bit as helpful.

No great problem however.
 
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So, counterpoint. I bought a maxed out 14” as soon as I could. Apple estimated delivery Nov 3-5. Updated to Nov 2. FedEx is now telling me Oct 29. We’ll see if that holds up. I can see it’s really close now and wouldn’t be surprised if it comes Oct 28.

edit: I don’t know why it’s coming fedex and not UPS. I didn’t select anything.
 
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Wow some people here are so out of touch. The plane may have had technical problems and it needs to get fixed. And people are like I don’t care if the pilots die in an unsafe machine give me my MacBook now!

I remember my train was cancelled due to a suicide, someone jumped onto the tracks and got hit, and some selfish hipsters at the train station were yelling at the poor railway staf trying to help. Like I don’t care for the reason and I don’t want to use the next train in one hour I want you to put a replacement train on the tracks right now! It’s a sad Me Me Me society we live in.
 
Wow some people here are so out of touch. The plane may have had technical problems and it needs to get fixed. And people are like I don’t care if the pilots die in an unsafe machine give me my MacBook now!

I remember my train was cancelled due to a suicide, someone jumped onto the tracks and got hit, and some selfish hipsters at the train station were yelling at the poor railway staf trying to help. Like I don’t care for the reason and I don’t want to use the next train in one hour I want you to put a replacement train on the tracks right now! It’s a sad Me Me Me society we live in.
Yeah that’s probably what they think ?

I think it’s mostly frustrating cause tracking is a mess.
 
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