December 18, 2006: Busiest night ever for FedEx
On that day, FedEx will move a record-breaking total of 9.8 million packages through its air express and ground networks. This is projected to be the busiest night in the history of FedEx and would break the company’s previous record night of 8.9 million on December 19, 2005.
Pretty impressive numbers. But how many of them will arrive on time?
I have been doing my yearly Christmas shopping online since 1998 and have never looked back. I don’t mind shopping, but detest the crowds and congestion caused by frenzied holiday shoppers; for me, it’s just not worth it. I have yet to experience a delivery failure of any Christmas present I ordered online since I started way back in 1998, but that’s probably more due to ordering well in advance to ensure timely delivery. You know those order deadlines you get from Amazon.com? “Order by “X” date to ensure delivery by December 23″ or whatever. I always padded them by at least a week.
However some people I know have been less than lucky with Amazon.com and other online retailers when cutting those close corners – basically ordering on the very last day indicated by the retailer to make it in time for Christmas – and then when they complained to the retailer having the retailer blame FedEx, or UPS or whichever carrier they happened to be using. As those in the 3PL industry know too well, this is a common excuse employed by many companies when things go wrong: blame the carrier or service provider.
I have always been curious to know how many of those service failures really were due to carriers as opposed to just shipping late. As it has never happened to me I wouldn’t know, but after reading this report on FedEx I think it would be very interesting to see the on time results for all the packages tendered on that busy day.
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