I had a FedEx overnight package that missed delivery yesterday and when I called FedEx the agent told me they were still recovering from last weeks weather issues. He said my type of package routed through AFW, that it had arrived, and that they “were accumulating a large number of packages there.” He couldn’t give me any eta on arrival. When I took a look at the flights in and out of AFW for FedEx it seems like they are not flying any extra sections to catch up. I’m curious if anyone knows more.

I think they are overwhelmed by volume/backlog still. I had a priority overnight envelope picked up in Nashville Monday night. It went BNA-MEM overnight Monday (normal), then went back to Nashville Tuesday morning (incorrect), then back to Memphis at some point, then out of MEM on a flight this morning. It was finally delivered an hour ago. They'd better not charge me for priority overnight.

It seems in the Atlanta area, FedEx is a huge mess, and has been for months. They are understaffed, and blame it on COVID; might be one of the reason, but they keep promising same transit time as before and underdeliver on a regular basis (close to 100% of the time...). UPS, and Amazon, on the other hand, have lengthened their transit time and meet or beat it.
So, around here: FedEx overpromises and underdelivers, while UPS and Amazon underpromise and overdeliver...

Now, not sure if this applies to the air freight activity; but, this is the general feeling around here

Yeah, I've recently sent out a handful of packages (2-Day shipments), and every single one of them was delivered late. Since I'm a FedEx Express employee, I can get an 80% discount on the original shipping price, so I'm not worried about getting a refund, but it's still quite annoying that FedEx promises a delivery date and doesn't follow through with it. I've even had issues with FedEx ground too. LOL.

It's not just Fedex, I had something shipped to me from the East Coast via USPS Priority 2-Day and it took over a week.

FedEx ground has been fine for me, but anything going through MEM has been held there for days for me, including overnight.

SoCalPilot wrote:

It's not just Fedex, I had something shipped to me from the East Coast via USPS Priority 2-Day and it took over a week.

My Fedex and UPS deliveries have been largely uneventful over last few months. USPS, on the other hand, is a different story. Had one shipment that was stuck in a California facility for nearly a month. Contacted the seller (Ebay) after a couple weeks, and they just issued a refund instead of trying to track it down. Two weeks later, the package shows up at my doorstep. Had another item that USPS took two weeks to get from the east coast to Michigan.

Both of My COVID tests that supposed to be overnighted on Express got to the labs a day late.

Wow. Sounds like a major issue. Are they not able to contract more air capacity to catch up?

SFOtoORD wrote:

Wow. Sounds like a major issue. Are they not able to contract more air capacity to catch up?

They have Western Global flying some MD-11s for them as extra lift, however the chokepoint may be with sorting and handling staff and at that point, all the extra lift in the world won't help all that much.

The FedEx delays I've been seeing are at the Sacramento and Roseville facilities (presumably sorting). In terms of air capacity FX1300 diverted to OAK on the 24th, presumably to pick up some extra cargo.

I've had unreal USPS deliveries. Got an item from December just last week! Issues seem regional. Always had great USPS service now it's super unreliable. Some items super fast, other get lost for days or weeks and sit.
Unreliable now.

UPS has been the same after the Christmas rush here. FedEx has seemed the same here, have had no issues with FedEx and at all. Both have arrived the day they said but sometimes pretty late. I regularly see the ups truck at 8pm in my neighborhood delivering home deliveries, never used to see them that late.

I think alot of the issues are regional and what facilities your item runs thru. People are ordering alot more online and I think alot drivers and sorting people don't feel the company has done enough to protect them with ppe so some they have seen people quit.

They've been dedicating some capacity and lift to vaccine transport. Not sure if that impacts other packages at all.

For me FedEx and USPS have been issues over the past two weeks. I have a FedEx ground package going from CA to VA that got stuck in IL and is still sitting at a distribution center. Or so they claim. USPS is just a mess. Package sent from KY to NJ, then NY, then NJ and it's supposed to be here in VA.

I had a FDX priority package from Japan. Sat in Japan for 5 days. I called customer service and I was told they were about 4 days behind and since it was weather there are no refunds and that they “ were going to just let it sort out”. Their smart post has sucked lately. Of my last 26 packages 24 had service updates or exceptions

UPS is having the same problem. Ground had trailers backing up in Austin at the station. My UPS driver stated he had 315 stops and another 350 stops, just like Christmas.

SFOtoORD wrote:

I had a FedEx overnight package that missed delivery yesterday and when I called FedEx the agent told me they were still recovering from last weeks weather issues. He said my type of package routed through AFW, that it had arrived, and that they “were accumulating a large number of packages there.” He couldn’t give me any eta on arrival. When I took a look at the flights in and out of AFW for FedEx it seems like they are not flying any extra sections to catch up. I’m curious if anyone knows more.

FEDEX is a mess. Before last week they claimed it was COVID. Now the weather. I own a custom auto shop and shipping delays of parts are the norm. They’ve been horrible for the last 4 years. Now, they just use the news of the day for an excuse. Back when I worked for AS, we had a quasi non-rev agreement with them. Their crew got ID90, later ZED passes, on us and we got reduced shipping. I’ve never been a fan, I beg my suppliers to use UPS, but FEDEX has carved their brand in folks so they’re are very popular. YMMV, but I hate having vendors that use them. LOL I know, First World problems. Now USPS? One word...Privatize! .

Yes, I was supposed to have something deliver the 24th....it's been in transit since the 22nd leaving from CA to FL, it is still in CA with a delivery status of "pending". Hopefully I'll see it by the end of next week.

Is FX also doing the COVID vaccine shipping in the US? There has been a big push to recover that distribution operation as soon as possible, which can be taking away extra lift capacity.

zippy wrote:

The FedEx delays I've been seeing are at the Sacramento and Roseville facilities (presumably sorting). In terms of air capacity FX1300 diverted to OAK on the 24th, presumably to pick up some extra cargo.

And those delays have been compounded on the FedEx Feeder flights ex-SMF (and I assume nationwide). In watching FlightAware, I've seen delays on the inbound MEM-SMF of a couple of hours (4-5 hours or cancelled during the MEM storms). The SMF-CEC and SMF-ACV flights were rarely on-time anyway, with weather on the coast or MEM-delayed inbounds. This week, the big bird has been late into SMF by 1:30hrs or so, but the flights here have been 6 hours late. Our overnight package was finally delivered here (CEC) around 6:45pm.
We've also been impacted by delays with USPS, UPS, FedEx Ground, GSO and On-trac as they all come up from Eureka (ACV, EKA), but US Hwy 101 has been mostly closed due to a landslide for 1 1/2 weeks now.
My UPS driver says they've just been snowed since Covid stay-at-home started because we're all shopping online instead of out. They've added trucks and drivers even for our small remote area. So I'm thinking some of FedEx's issue is just being overwhelmed like all the others.

Memphis was wholly unprepared for the snow and ice they received. I don't mean the airport specifically - I mean the city and the people. Nobody was leaving their home, and a hub of many thousands of people can't operate when there aren't workers. It's a good illustration of how MEM-centric FedEx is. Even as the other hubs continued to operate, the network came to a near-standstill for nearly a week. Freight was largely NOT routed through other hubs, instead left to sit at origin ramps. Keep in mind this was majority USPS volume. So nobody was getting Priority Mail on time.
It is still not cleared up. Better, but not great.

SFOtoORD wrote:

I had a FedEx overnight package that missed delivery yesterday and when I called FedEx the agent told me they were still recovering from last weeks weather issues. He said my type of package routed through AFW, that it had arrived, and that they “were accumulating a large number of packages there.” He couldn’t give me any eta on arrival. When I took a look at the flights in and out of AFW for FedEx it seems like they are not flying any extra sections to catch up. I’m curious if anyone knows more.

AFW is indeed a mess right now. They have a huge but slowly shrinking backlog of freight out there. I drive a tractor trailer for FedEx and I have a run that I pull every morning from there. I am averaging 1.5-2 hours late every day due to late sort down. According to a few of the AFW sort people that I talked to yesterday, they don’t anticipate getting caught up until sometime late next week. MEM is in worse shape from what I hear. They are suffering from a severe shortage of containers and dollies which is impeding the processing of their backlog of freight.

SoCalPilot wrote:

It's not just Fedex, I had something shipped to me from the East Coast via USPS Priority 2-Day and it took over a week.

A large amount of the USPS is delivered FedEx, so there is your problem. On a typical night in LAS for example, the FedEx 767 arrived with anywhere from 8-16 AAD's of mail. Thats not including the belly cans which will bump that number up. Thats just the pm arrival. FedEx went almost 4 days here in Vegas without a plane arriving from MEM and only had the OAK/RNO arrivals operating. It took almost a week for employees with no direct deposit to even get their paychecks.

I have two priority mail packages that left St. Louis on Monday that left again yesterday. I think they got put on a truck and the truck didn’t go anywhere. No doubt on FedEx. My UPS package out of St. Louis got here in a day though.

I had a package from India that went right through MEM within hours last weekend. I was shocked that it wasn't delayed for days there. I have a feeling that they were processing current packages like normal and the older parcels were sitting in containers on the ramp.

EXMEMWIDGET wrote:

SFOtoORD wrote:

I had a FedEx overnight package that missed delivery yesterday and when I called FedEx the agent told me they were still recovering from last weeks weather issues. He said my type of package routed through AFW, that it had arrived, and that they “were accumulating a large number of packages there.” He couldn’t give me any eta on arrival. When I took a look at the flights in and out of AFW for FedEx it seems like they are not flying any extra sections to catch up. I’m curious if anyone knows more.

AFW is indeed a mess right now. They have a huge but slowly shrinking backlog of freight out there. I drive a tractor trailer for FedEx and I have a run that I pull every morning from there. I am averaging 1.5-2 hours late every day due to late sort down. According to a few of the AFW sort people that I talked to yesterday, they don’t anticipate getting caught up until sometime late next week. MEM is in worse shape from what I hear. They are suffering from a severe shortage of containers and dollies which is impeding the processing of their backlog of freight.

That makes sense and makes it clear why it’s not just a case of needing more air lift. They should figure out how to communicate with their customers. They also should consider warning new shippers that overnight might not be overnight.

HPRamper wrote:

Memphis was wholly unprepared for the snow and ice they received. I don't mean the airport specifically - I mean the city and the people. Nobody was leaving their home, and a hub of many thousands of people can't operate when there aren't workers. It's a good illustration of how MEM-centric FedEx is. Even as the other hubs continued to operate, the network came to a near-standstill for nearly a week. Freight was largely NOT routed through other hubs, instead left to sit at origin ramps. Keep in mind this was majority USPS volume. So nobody was getting Priority Mail on time.
It is still not cleared up. Better, but not great.

recycled from the thread on storm disruptions last week. As always - some facts, some conjectures and some opinions:

leoben wrote:

-MEM has about 200 mainline gates and maybe 2 million pieces(from envelopes to full pallet size pieces) come through on a normal night, with maybe another million+ through a normal day sort. The new sort facility may increase the throughput, but I dont know. It is already a mind-boggling operation.

-IND has about 70 gates and also had WX issues most of the week. The expansion of the IND sort will provide additional relief to MEM, but that is ongoing and it is implausible that it could ever rival MEM in volume.
-AFW has 17 mainline parking spots and you might have heard - TX had a little bit of difficulty this last week.
-GSO has 9 mainline parking spots - WX was good there, but not a ton of capacity to start.
-EWR has 17 gates, with a healthy percentage of their volume not domestic, but TATL. The NE also did not have a great week for WX, but they are more accustomed to it.
-OAK has 17 gates and like EWR, a % of the volume is not domestic, but TPAC.

OAK and GSO were the only truly normal operations all week. But even if every other sort was at 100%, the total capacity is only around 1/2 of MEM.

In normal times, a large percentage of the flights through the smaller sorts are already just bypassing MEM. That capacity is already accounted for, and does not leave much for rerouting. Additionally, there are many stations that are ONLY served by MEM.

As for the trucking option, that may be another data point for the higher-ups in MEM to consider in regards to the organizational separation of Express and Ground. But doing point to point is very different that hub and spoke, whether by air or ground.

edit: trucking point to point over short to medium distances is exponentially more realistic than by air.

Unfortunately, after the week of weather event after weather event without time to recover, the whole domestic system was in disarray (dont know how intl is faring). Like any airline, the FX meteorologists are pretty good, but obviously the sequence of events snowballed on them. In hindsight, they could have stopped accepting some freight for a few days and made a hard reset in MEM, but obviously no one had any idea of how the week would turn out.

The snarl of freight at the outstations and in MEM has created its own logistical issues. Dollies, cans, floor/ramp space to just keep the stuff were and maybe still are all in short supply. Especially the week of all the snow - many parts of the facility were inaccessible and even after plowing, snow piles would have covered acres of ramp space.

There were extra sorts added last weekend and a lot of asymmetric routings, flying mostly empty cans inbound, and completely full outbound in an attempt to free the logjams. Flight Ops has been adding XTRA flights and pairings (some with new city pairs or multi-stops) like gangbusters, but there is a limit as to how much flying they can squeeze out of the current fleet and crewforce. Or how much new volume they can move through the sorts until some of the excess freight gets moved out.

I saw somewhere that the weeks total snowfall in MEM was a little over 12", with strong doses of sleet and ice mixed in over the week. Tough for a southern city like Memphis to recover from that. The cherry on that sundae: at the end of the week was the water main ruptures w/ the shutdown of MEM passenger terminal (FX deadheads a lot of crews in normal times, and for recovery this would be even more crucial) and many FX facilities also affected.

I was at a lab last week where they are waiting for USPS Priority Express packages shipped from MI points over a week ago. 7+ days on a trip you could drive in less than four hours. So if FedEx is handling these shipments for USPS, it might explain the delay.

SFOtoORD wrote:

EXMEMWIDGET wrote:

SFOtoORD wrote:

I had a FedEx overnight package that missed delivery yesterday and when I called FedEx the agent told me they were still recovering from last weeks weather issues. He said my type of package routed through AFW, that it had arrived, and that they “were accumulating a large number of packages there.” He couldn’t give me any eta on arrival. When I took a look at the flights in and out of AFW for FedEx it seems like they are not flying any extra sections to catch up. I’m curious if anyone knows more.

AFW is indeed a mess right now. They have a huge but slowly shrinking backlog of freight out there. I drive a tractor trailer for FedEx and I have a run that I pull every morning from there. I am averaging 1.5-2 hours late every day due to late sort down. According to a few of the AFW sort people that I talked to yesterday, they don’t anticipate getting caught up until sometime late next week. MEM is in worse shape from what I hear. They are suffering from a severe shortage of containers and dollies which is impeding the processing of their backlog of freight.

That makes sense and makes it clear why it’s not just a case of needing more air lift. They should figure out how to communicate with their customers. They also should consider warning new shippers that overnight might not be overnight.

Their lack of communication or concern for customer shipments is why I no longer use them. As I said I wish my vendors wouldn’t either..but. And it’s not just their crappy op in Memphis. Their ground is poorly run too. I had a ground, LA-Jackson MS part get hung up for days in Olive Branch MS. In fact, as I write, it’s still there. Every day they push delivery back a day. They’ve spent years on building the brand “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight!” But they just can’t live up to what they once were. And good luck getting anyone on the phone who can help. Luckily, they’ve got a ton of nationwide excuses for their poor op. And just as luckily, for my customers, I’ve got other options.

Metjetceo wrote:

I had a FDX priority package from Japan. Sat in Japan for 5 days. I called customer service and I was told they were about 4 days behind and since it was weather there are no refunds and that they “ were going to just let it sort out”. Their smart post has sucked lately. Of my last 26 packages 24 had service updates or exceptions

I've also had SmartPost problems recently. Ordered an item back in January, it was backordered and was finally shipped two weeks ago. Never touched MEM, went thru IND, then Belleville, then to my local facility and was confirmed to be out for delivery. Then FedEx said there was a delivery exception saying that the local weather was too hazardous to attempt delivery in my area (i.e., Winter Storm Uri). Roads were clear, no clouds in the sky. It was a beautiful day, and we weren't affected by anything that hit the central part of the country. Spent half an hour on the phone arguing with their "customer service" reps who were insisting that the weather was bad while I stared out my window at what was almost a spring day. Ridiculous.

It's about time for Fred Smith to step down and bring someone in who can lead the turnaround at FedEx.
They've been in decline for the past few years and just keeps getting worse.
I get 85% off priority overnight and 2nd day air but it's worth more to send items via UPS at this point.

Massive delays and service issues. I had nine pieces of luggage scheduled for pick up Monday 22Feb, they were picked up Wednesday in Park City and three pieces delivered yesterday and the rest are being delivered today. Total chit show. They were to arrive on Wednesday. Glad this didn't happen on the trip out to Deer Valley. I have items ordered from Container Store ordered ten days ago, just sthipped on 23Feb and those arrived today. I think Container Store delayed shipping knowing there were issues.I had a phone rep tell me ... 'it is what it is' yesterday ... I figure they are no longer there today. I just said thank you and hung up after that comment.

My next day priority is 9 days late to LAS and, last I was informed, sitting in the ramp in ICT. I offered to fly to ICT and retrieve it but was told that they couldn’t retrieve the package. Social media and their website have offered very little official information. I’ve found out more on here than I have with communicating with Fedex. I understand a severe storm is to blame, but why are they still accepting packages with such a huge backlog?

braniff2hav wrote:

Massive delays and service issues. I had nine pieces of luggage scheduled for pick up Monday 22Feb, they were picked up Wednesday in Park City and three pieces delivered yesterday and the rest are being delivered today. Total chit show. They were to arrive on Wednesday. Glad this didn't happen on the trip out to Deer Valley. I have items ordered from Container Store ordered ten days ago, just sthipped on 23Feb and those arrived today. I think Container Store delayed shipping knowing there were issues.I had a phone rep tell me ... 'it is what it is' yesterday ... I figure they are no longer there today. I just said thank you and hung up after that comment.

FedEx has been capping customer shipping volume in the hope of catching up with the packages that are already in their system. That is most likely reason why your Container Store shipment was delayed in being shipped.

It's not just Dallas, I have a Priority Overnight package that shipped Wednesday afternoon and has been sitting at MEM since 12:48am Thursday. It has missed 5 MEM-CLE flights so far.

EXMEMWIDGET wrote:

braniff2hav wrote:

Massive delays and service issues. I had nine pieces of luggage scheduled for pick up Monday 22Feb, they were picked up Wednesday in Park City and three pieces delivered yesterday and the rest are being delivered today. Total chit show. They were to arrive on Wednesday. Glad this didn't happen on the trip out to Deer Valley. I have items ordered from Container Store ordered ten days ago, just sthipped on 23Feb and those arrived today. I think Container Store delayed shipping knowing there were issues.I had a phone rep tell me ... 'it is what it is' yesterday ... I figure they are no longer there today. I just said thank you and hung up after that comment.

FedEx has been capping customer shipping volume in the hope of catching up with the packages that are already in their system. That is most likely reason why your Container Store shipment was delayed in being shipped.

Capping volume and they still can’t get it done. Pure unadulterated crap for an operation. They seem to be the equivalent of a horrible passenger carrier in the vain of Tower Air. Impressive.

First press story I’ve seen on their inability to recover from storms 2 weeks ago:

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/ ... 873225002/

The state of their operation seems bad, but their lack of substantive customer communication is even worse. This seems as bad or worse than B6’s Valentine’s meltdown except in this case it isn’t people stranded. However, they are taking even longer to recover.

I had 2 packages that came in by air delayed by a day so not bad, but both of them were opened! And the second package had missing items. So not a great week+ FedEx.

On a side note. I just thought about this. How is USPS handling all their overnight express envelopes and packages? I worked few years back at USPS and would drive the van to TPA post office to pick up express for Sarasota, that arrived on Fedex. Most of the time the flight was late and most of the express was delivered by the few mail carriers like me and most times we missed the noon or 3 pm delivery schedule. I always wondered if USPS even made money on express mail.

Tack wrote:

SFOtoORD wrote:

EXMEMWIDGET wrote:

AFW is indeed a mess right now. They have a huge but slowly shrinking backlog of freight out there. I drive a tractor trailer for FedEx and I have a run that I pull every morning from there. I am averaging 1.5-2 hours late every day due to late sort down. According to a few of the AFW sort people that I talked to yesterday, they don’t anticipate getting caught up until sometime late next week. MEM is in worse shape from what I hear. They are suffering from a severe shortage of containers and dollies which is impeding the processing of their backlog of freight.

That makes sense and makes it clear why it’s not just a case of needing more air lift. They should figure out how to communicate with their customers. They also should consider warning new shippers that overnight might not be overnight.

Their lack of communication or concern for customer shipments is why I no longer use them. As I said I wish my vendors wouldn’t either..but. And it’s not just their crappy op in Memphis. Their ground is poorly run too. I had a ground, LA-Jackson MS part get hung up for days in Olive Branch MS. In fact, as I write, it’s still there. Every day they push delivery back a day. They’ve spent years on building the brand “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight!” But they just can’t live up to what they once were. And good luck getting anyone on the phone who can help. Luckily, they’ve got a ton of nationwide excuses for their poor op. And just as luckily, for my customers, I’ve got other options.

FedEx ground Olive Branch MS has been horrible for a long time even before the snow storm. Early in the pandemic I ordered a lot from Omaha Steaks and it comes in a styrofoam container packed in dry ice. Well one shipment sat on the dock in Olive Branch for 3 days before it was delivered to me only 5 miles down the road by then it had thawed and was ruined. Omaha Steaks tried to make it right but I said nope not your fault but I am not ordering from you again because this wasn't the first time. I will not order perishable goods online if FedEx ground is involved. If my chewy orders are late which they are often too it's not as much of an issue.

UPS is not doing much better. There are still trailers piling up at stations. Takes time to unwind a week of trailers. This is not peak season and UPS and FEDEX are not setup to handle this type of volume in this normally slow season.

ramprat74 wrote:

...
I have a feeling that they were processing current packages like normal and the older parcels were sitting in containers on the ramp.

That makes sense. It minimizes the amount of annoyed customers.

Some years back I had a flight India to Europe. For several days flights were grounded because of volcanic ash in the air. My ticket was for the first or second day flights were allowed again. Those who already waited some days had to wait some more. I flew.
I could have shifted my flight a few days. But I was never asked if I was able/ willing to do so. I guess the airline employees were already busy enough communicating with those whose flights got cancelled.

It looks like they eventually just put my overnight package onto a semi after a week of sitting in Ft Worth. Maybe I’ll get it someday. I’m sure this is a challenging time for their staff.

Have had several packages shipped via USPS and 5X and FX that have taken far longer than they should’ve. Lack of updates as well for several days on some of them

Issues here as well. Many shipments give a delivery day, then move to pending for a day or two and end up being delivered 1-2 days late, typically.

I had a pool pump that was supposed to be delivered Monday and it got delivered today.

I’m located in the DFW Metroplex.

The Wall Street Journal did an extensive article on this in today's paper: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fedex-deli ... lista_pos1

FedEx claims it will be back to normal by the weekend. We'll see.

ShipMatrix, according to the WSJ, says that over 1/4 of FedEx's shipments are delayed.

The headline of the article is, "FedEx Delivery Delays Stretch For Weeks After Storms Hit Memphis Hub". I don't think they mean that individual items were delayed for weeks (although some on here suggest that they have), but rather that it has been a goatrope for weeks.

Meanwhile, I ordered groceries from Amazon at 6pm, and they were here by 9:45pm. And all my other Amazon-delivered stuff (which was all of it over the past week) has been on-time, including a bunch of stuff that went through ILN on Amazon Air. I noticed that it trucked from MEM to ILN, and then onto Amazon Air.

I think their problem in Fedex is not just that, us in Europe isnt that much better, we have had shipments from Dubai to the UK, it went to Delhi, sat there for a few days then went to Paris and then UK. It was only a few days late but around that week, DHL used two days to send something from HKG to UK, on time.

wjcandee wrote:

The Wall Street Journal did an extensive article on this in today's paper: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fedex-deli ... lista_pos1

FedEx claims it will be back to normal by the weekend. We'll see.

ShipMatrix, according to the WSJ, says that over 1/4 of FedEx's shipments are delayed.

The headline of the article is, "FedEx Delivery Delays Stretch For Weeks After Storms Hit Memphis Hub". I don't think they mean that individual items were delayed for weeks (although some on here suggest that they have), but rather that it has been a goatrope for weeks.

Meanwhile, I ordered groceries from Amazon at 6pm, and they were here by 9:45pm. And all my other Amazon-delivered stuff (which was all of it over the past week) has been on-time, including a bunch of stuff that went through ILN on Amazon Air. I noticed that it trucked from MEM to ILN, and then onto Amazon Air.

It was only yesterday that we were finally allowed to move our freight to MEM unrestricted. Up until this week, day by day we've been told "only FedEx freight, no postal" or "only postal, leave the FedEx freight" or "anything but heavyweight" etc etc. They have also been loading bulk trucks MEM-bound, which when we have space on the flights is nearly unheard-of in my market. Just a cascading effect through the system. Many FedEx employees very disappointed in the situation, watching a lot of customer goodwill evaporate.

wjcandee wrote:

The Wall Street Journal did an extensive article on this in today's paper: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fedex-deli ... lista_pos1

FedEx claims it will be back to normal by the weekend. We'll see.

ShipMatrix, according to the WSJ, says that over 1/4 of FedEx's shipments are delayed.

The headline of the article is, "FedEx Delivery Delays Stretch For Weeks After Storms Hit Memphis Hub". I don't think they mean that individual items were delayed for weeks (although some on here suggest that they have), but rather that it has been a goatrope for weeks.

Meanwhile, I ordered groceries from Amazon at 6pm, and they were here by 9:45pm. And all my other Amazon-delivered stuff (which was all of it over the past week) has been on-time, including a bunch of stuff that went through ILN on Amazon Air. I noticed that it trucked from MEM to ILN, and then onto Amazon Air.

Can’t really compare Amazon with Fed Ex, Amazon groceries pick up from a local distribution center. Amazon shipping network is different from FedEx. The deliver goods from regional distribution centers and they ship goods between distribution centers to keep them stocked up. While FedEx, all goes through Mem or Ind for the big sort then head to the outstations.

I am just amazed that a company so huge, with movable assets, was caught standing still during this. I get you can’t replicate the MEM hub somewhere else, but you’d think they would have some way of shifting capacity elsewhere. Even just a few planes doing shuttle work to flyover the MEM hub to keep the log jam from growing. Instead of routing everything to MEM despite the standstill. What a cluster. Could you imagine the outrage if United or Delta had a hub close down, yet for several days continued routing passengers to that hub with no way to get out? Senators would be involved.

bigb wrote:

Can’t really compare Amazon with Fed Ex, Amazon groceries pick up from a local distribution center. Amazon shipping network is different from FedEx. The deliver goods from regional distribution centers and they ship goods between distribution centers to keep them stocked up. While FedEx, all goes through Mem or Ind for the big sort then head to the outstations.

In this case you can compare. Both involve stuff coming from an origin facility (FedEx Station, Amazon Distribution Center), being trucked to the airport or trucked to the destination station, being sorted at the hub if it goes through a hub, moving to the destination (airport or terminal), being trucked from the airport or terminal to a destination station, and being brought to the home or business.

You point out that Amazon doesn't pick up at homes/businesses. True. But the main issues facing FedEx, as described in the articles and anecdotes above, have to do with moving from the origin station (equivalent to the Amazon DC) to the destination station, with congestion at the air hub and little done to try to bypass that. Amazon Air has many bypass flights, and thus was able to fly over a lot of the trouble spots. That's my primary point. The grocery comment was just to show how far Amazon has come in terms of last-mile. The grocery business is entirely last-mile, and they have dramatically-improved it in even the last 3 months.

By the way, it's a total freaking myth/misimpression that Amazon uses Air to move supplies between DCs. In fact, Amazon uses Air to move individual packages, just like they would use UPS. It goes, Origin DC, Origin Airport, Destination Airport, Destination PSC and then either into the USPS last-mile operation at the DDU level or the Amazon organic last mile or an independent (e.g. Lasership/Ontrac) last mile, all from the PSC.