Transportation's Greatest Show on Earth

Every night just after 11:30 p.m., more than 9,000 part-time workers flood into the FedEx Super Hub for what is perhaps the greatest transportation show on earth. Over the next five hours, 160 planes will descend upon the site, unloading an estimated 1.5 million pieces of mail and reloading to take off for destinations throughout the world.

A few hundred yards from the tarmac, another frantic scene unfolds beneath a “Super South” banner. Trucks and trailers pull up to a dock to unload containers filled with packages or palletized freight.

A conveyor belt running the length of the dock takes packages into the bowels of the massive hub to be sorted and later loaded onto a plane or truck. Freight on pallets is sorted under a huge outdoor canopy and placed onto planes or trucks for delivery to their destination.

The scenes illustrate the integrated nature of FedEx’s service and the dual role its air hubs are playing as the company moves to expand its overnight express delivery operation to include ground-based, time-definite freight service.

For years, every package and letter shipped by FedEx, even items moving from one side of town to another, went through Memphis. As volume has increased, regional air hubs and trucks have taken on much of the load.

Diverting the workload has taken some of the burden off Memphis, which now handles no more than 50% of FedEx’s domestic air freight. But it remains a bustling hub, receiving 20 to 25 international flights a night. When a runway extension is completed next year, the processing facility will be able to handle direct flights from anywhere in the world.

For the full story, see the Feb. 15 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.