FedEx Expects 11% Gain in Holiday Package Volume

FedEx Corp. said it expects to handle 223.3 million items between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, an 11% increase over the same period last year.

The busiest day in the carrier's history will be Dec. 13, FedEx said in a statement late Thursday. It will process 16 million items that day, FedEx predicted.

More than half of the holiday increase will be due to SmartPost, a service in which FedEx ships items for most of their journey, and then the United States Postal Service handles the final delivery.

UPS Inc. said last month that it expects a 7.5% volume increase to 430 million packages in the same period, Bloomberg reported.

FedEx Corp. is ranked No. 2 on the Transport Topics 100 listing of U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.