Package Volumes Projected to Spike on 12-Dec as FedEx Hits its Busiest Day in History
09-Dec-2011 FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) facilities and team members will be buzzing on Monday, December 12, as the company reaches what is projected to be its busiest day in a nearly 40-year history. Company forecasters expect FedEx will move approximately 17 million shipments - almost double its daily average volume - through its global networks on that day.
To handle the surge, FedEx has added 20,000 seasonal positions at FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx SmartPost and is offering additional shifts to current team members working at facilities around the country.
"There's an extraordinary amount of technology and precision that is in place at FedEx to ensure packages get to their destinations before Christmas," said John Dunavant, vice president of the FedEx Express World Hub in Memphis, Tennessee. "At the Memphis hub alone we will see up to three million packages speed down 42 miles of conveyor belts on our busiest December day, each one scanned an average of 23 times to ensure we know where our customers' shipments are at any given time. And as busy as we are in Memphis, FedEx hubs and stations around the world are feeling the holiday surge as well."
FedEx, known for the ability of its network to adapt with changing customer needs and global trends, puts that flexibility to the test every holiday season as shipping volumes continue to grow. In fact, as the network grew to meet customer demands, the company's "busiest day" volumes and network capacity has jumped nearly 75 percent since Christmas 2005.
· Dec. 12, 2005 - 9.8 million shipments
· Dec. 18, 2006 - 10.6 million shipments
· Dec. 17, 2007 - 11.5 million shipments
· Dec. 15, 2008 - 12.0 million shipments
· Dec. 14, 2009 - 14.2 million shipments
· Dec. 13, 2010 - 15.6 million shipments
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, FedEx forecasts a year-over-year increase largely driven by FedEx SmartPost, a residential shipping service designed for online and catalog retailers, as well as expected increased volume at FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery, popular delivery service choices for personal shippers.
The impact of the expected higher volumes was included in the company's earnings guidance issued in September.