AP News story about FedEx and UPS planes "filling the sky" at night.
May 14, 1999
Cargo Planes Fill Nighttime Sky
Filed at 2:24 p.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- The planes touch down one after another on three
runways. Crews wearing knee pads and back braces rush to unload them,
and within 20 minutes roughly 1.3 million documents and boxes are sent into
a maze of human and computerized sorters.
Three hours later, the jets roar back into the air, their cargo rerouted to its
final destination.
As the country sleeps each night, the skies over Memphis glow with the
lights of Federal Express jets, a string of mechanical fireflies headed to and
from the delivery company's national distribution center.
It's a far cry from the company's first night in 1973, when a fleet of 25
planes handled 186 packages. It's also just a hint of things to come.
The use of air delivery services -- particularly overseas -- is expected to
boom in the coming years.
Fred Smith, founder of Federal Express, the world's No. 1 air delivery
business, says the industry is ''just reaching its growth stride.''
The ripples from such growth will be felt not only through the rest of the
economy, but also the aviation industry.
Skies that are already crowded in the daytime are becoming more so at night,
when cargo jets make their mad dash to hubs like Memphis or Louisville,
Ky., where the air operation for United Parcel Service is based.
Pilots are pushing the government to require the installation of collision
avoidance equipment in cargo planes, just as it did for commercial airliners.
The traffic is also creating a heavy demand for flight crews. Young pilots
once destined to spend years skipping from community to community in
puddle jumpers are now being plucked to fly jets full of packages around the
globe.
That's creating a supply problem for the passenger airlines, whose heavy
recruiting has already taken a toll on the military's supply of pilots.
The U.S. express delivery business -- as the time-guaranteed delivery of
packages and documents is known -- is roughly a $23 billion industry. FedEx
-- the official name today for Federal Express -- expects the business to more
than quadruple to $100 billion within 20 years.
FedEx and other players such as United Parcel Service, Airborne Express and
DHL expect even larger growth overseas, with the total marketplace perhaps
reaching $250 billion by 2020.
What's fueling the growth is a change in how companies conduct their
business.
Because it is increasingly easy to ship goods rapidly, and since companies
now guarantee delivery times, businesses are less likely to keep expensive
inventories on site. They are more interested in ordering products just in time
for delivery to their customers.
The parts for the average Dell computer, for example, spend little more than
eight hours at the company's Texas manufacturing plant before they are
assembled and shipped off to the buyer.
The transformation has turned airplanes and trucks into mobile warehouses.
''What's happened is that in the '70s and '80s, everyone considered air to be
the premium spread of the world, sort of the butter. That is true, but what
wasn't taken into account -- and what is being considered now -- is the
savings that can create,'' said Steve Alterman, spokesman for the Cargo
Airline Association, a trade group.
With the growth has come challenges.
Crowded skies, for example, have prompted UPS to develop a new collision
avoidance system called ADS-B. It allows pilots to see traffic up to 100 miles
away, as well as vehicles on the ground. UPS is now seeking government
approval to install the devices in its fleet.
FedEx, UPS and their competitors also expect they will have to recruit more
heavily as the competition for pilots heightens.
But Tom Weidemeyer, president of UPS Airlines, said the move toward
globalization and the increasing use of electronic commerce such as Internet
shopping spells a bright future for the air delivery industry.
The quick, easy movement of products ''will mean a limitless ability for
anybody anywhere to be a global company,'' Weidemeyer said.
''Amazon.com has already proven that.''
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company |
