FedEx gears up for busiest day in company history

FedEx is preparing itself to handle about 8.5 million packages on the company's busiest day of the holiday season, about 400,000 more than last year's busiest day.

November 1, 2005: According to research firm eMarketer, online retail sales are expected to grow 22% in the final three months of 2005, to roughly $26 billion. With consumers spending more time online, e-commerce will likely drive more holiday activity this season than in the past, said FedEx economist Gene Huang.

More than 250,000 employees and contractors, 674 planes and 70,000 vehicles will move the 8.5 million packages expected to pass through the FedEx Ground and FedEx Express networks on December 12 a volume increase of 40% increase from the average daily volume of 6 million.

www.fedex.com expects to process a daily average of 3.5 million to 4 million online tracking requests during peak season.

FedEx Ground is now seeing higher daily volumes as thousands of online and catalogue retailers take advantage of the FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx SmartPost services.

Economic growth continues on a healthy and sustainable pace with recent indicators suggesting that the holiday season will be solid, said Huang. Improving trends in merchandise sales, business orders, the services sector and employment in the US remain in place, and this bodes well for holiday sales.