The US Postal Service is FedEx’s Largest Customer
March 8, 2012 at 2:00 am Chad Upton 4 comments
By Chad Upton | Editor
FedEx Express currently owns 697 airplanes, with another 48 on order. That makes FedEx the 6th largest airline by fleet size. They operate more Airbus 300 and 310 airplanes than any other airline and there are only five airlines with more planes than FedEx.
- Delta Air Lines
- SkyWest
- United Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Southwest Airlines
The next five airlines after FedEx are: American Airlines, Air France-KLM, International Airlines Group, Air Canada, and Chine Southern Airlines.
The FedEx airfreight concept was dreamt up by Fred Smith who wrote a college paper proposing the idea. His professor gave the paper a ‘C’ grade and that’s kind of how the company started out in 1971.
At one point, the company was losing up to a million US dollars per month. Smith tried to raise capital from General Dynamics, who turned him down. While waiting for his flight home to Memphis, he decided to take a detour to Las Vegas where he won $27,000 — enabling the company to make payroll the week after.
That gave him enough time to raise between $50 and $70 million in additional funding. By 1976, it was a profitable company that set many trends in the industry. They were the first shipping company to computerize and offer parcel tracking. In 1994, they were the first shipping company offer online tracking.
Tip: Enter a FedEx, UPS or USPS tracking number in google and you’ll get a link to the tracking info.
Fedex’s largest customer is actually the US Postal Service. This is a bit strange since FedEx introduced its overnight mail service in 1981 to compete directly with the USPS’s express mail service. But, in 2001, FedEx signed a deal to carry Express and Priority Mail for the USPS — that contract has been extended to 2013.
Last but not least, the FedEx logo has an arrow between the letters “E” an “x”.
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Sources: wikipedia (world’s largest airlines, fedex)
Entry filed under: Geek. Tags: aircraft, airplane, fedex, fleet, usps.
Broken Secrets 
1.
Wendy | March 8, 2012 at 1:21 pm
WOW! Love stories of bright solution maker entepreneurs! So cool!
I don’t see the arrow though; where’s the arrow? :) Thx
2.
Chad Upton | March 8, 2012 at 10:26 pm
The arrow shape is created by the white space that joins the lower part of the letter E with the letter x in FedEx.
3.
okiedude | March 17, 2012 at 11:01 am
Most people don’t know that the USPS delivers packages for both UPS and Fedex. It’s almost half of their combined yearly volume. Last time I saw the numbers, the USPS delivers 28% of Fedex and 61% of UPS packages.
4.
Jonathan Willard | November 5, 2015 at 7:27 pm
Is that right?
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/08/05/the-post-offices-biggest-customers-are-fedex-ups/