FedEx: “Our busiest day in history”
The busiest day in FedEx’s history is underway for the 285,000 team members, as drivers hit the road to pick-up almost 16m shipments around the world. This volume represents an increase of nearly 13% from last year’s busiest day and is double the volume handled on an average day in the FedEx network.
FedEx expects to move more than 223m shipments in its global networks between Thanksgiving and Christmas-a year-over-year increase of 11%.
To celebrate this milestone, FedEx front line team members rang the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Opening Bell this morning. The team members will represent FedEx Ground, FedEx Express, FedEx Freight and FedEx Custom Critical.
“The holiday delivery season is an exciting time FedEx team members around the world -from the drivers and couriers who deliver each box, to the route planners and on-staff meteorologists who help ensure we maintain our excellent customer service levels,” said T. Michael Glenn, executive vice president of Market Development at FedEx. “FedEx has been preparing for the seasonal surge of packages for almost a year and we’ve leveraged our decades of logistical expertise to ensure FedEx has all the right assets in place to handle our busiest day in history.”
More than half of the holiday season volume increase will be from FedEx SmartPost shipments. FedEx SmartPost volume is largely driven by online retailers and cataloguers who ship high volumes of lighter shipments to residential customers. FedEx SmartPost has a completely integrated national network that picks up, sorts and delivers packages directly to US Postal service facilities for final delivery to residences.
During the week of 13 December, also the busiest week of the year for FedEx, the company expects to move more than 63m shipments compared to last year’s busiest week of 57.5m shipments. Items such as books from large internet retailers and retail inventory such as apparel, personal consumer electronics and luxury goods will drive FedEx holiday volumes.
