The company, based in Memphis, Tennessee said it is expecting to handle more than 317 million shipments from Black Friday, which is traditionally the busiest shopping day in the US and Christmas Eve, a 12.4% increase from previous year.
Advertisement
The National Retail Federation has predicted retail sales in November and December – excluding automobiles, fuel and restaurant sales – will increase 3.7 percent to $630.5 billion after a 4.1 percent increase past year.
The company sees three package volume spikes on the first three Mondays following Black Friday.
FedEx released their projections for the holiday season on Monday, with a forecast of greater volume than a year ago.
This year FedEx has invested $1.6 billion in capacity and automation projects at FedEx Ground to help with peak season. FedEx thinks on those particular days they could be handling twice as many packages as they would on a typical day throughout the year, as online shoppers make their purchases.
This year, FedEx plans to hire 55,000 seasonal workers, a 10 percent increase over last year. Between FedEx and rival shipper UPS, about two million packages were not delivered on time for Christmas. However, the increase in volume has prompted investments from the shipping giants to improve their ground and air infrastructure.
Large bursts of seasonal hiring are typical for the holiday season. The NRF said online retail sales could increase up to 8 percent, to as much as $105 billion. Last year, hoping to avoid a similar situation, FedEx and UPS beefed up their seasonal workforces and worked with retailers to get earlier and better estimates of how pressured their shipping network would be.
FedEx’s Fitzgerald said that if retailers come in way above forecast with a sudden surge in packages, the company may “need to cap volumes” in order to protect its network.
Advertisement
FedEx Express has enhanced the capabilities of its global network through a fleet modernization program that saw 30 more reliable and efficient aircraft added over the past year (2 B777Fs, 18 B767Fs and 10 B757Fs).
