MEMPHIS
made improvements – including
renovating hangar space at a former
Tennessee Air National Guard facility on
the airfi eld – to support the business.
Federal Express started operations on
April 17, 1973. It had 389 staff , a fl eet of
vans and 14 small Dassault Falcon 20 jets
that fl ew to 25 cities across the eastern
side of the USA. Overnight, two-day and
courier services were off ered, and Smith’s
business advertised itself as ‘the freight
service with 550mph delivery trucks’. On
that fi rst shift the company moved just
186 packages.Expansion
Volume grew to more than 19,000
shipments per day over the next two
years, but cash dwindled to around
$5,000, in part due to rising fuel costs.
This prompted Smith to seek further
investment, but initially he came up
empty-handed. After a particularly
unsuccessful trip to Chicago, he ended
up in Las Vegas and wagered the last
of the fi rm’s money in a casino. Smith
acknowledges that winning $27,000 on
the blackjack tables was not a decisive
event that saved Federal Express, but at
the time he believed it was a portent for
improvement. It spurred him on and he
proceeded to secure additional venture
capital and institutional funding that kept
the business afl oat.
Memphis became a key component
in the Federal Express system, but
the operation became much more
sophisticated as the tentacles of the
network extended to every address in
the USA. A typical air package starts
its journey at a local offi ce in
a small town. One of
the company’svans takes it to an airport where it is
loaded onto a Cessna 208 Caravan and
fl own to a secondary hub. It will then
be placed onto a larger aircraft, often
a 757 or 767, and carried to Memphis.
Following the sort in Tennessee the
consignment moves onward again on
another jet, and having reached its
third airport of the night it will be either
trucked or fl own to its destination city.
Finally, a van takes over again and takes
the shipment to the addressee. It sounds
rather complex, but the network enables
an item to be shipped from one end of
the USA to the other overnight, no ma er
how remote the origin and delivery
addresses are.
Federal Express continued to grow
and produced its fi rst profi t of $3.6m in- It became a leading lobbyist
supporting US air freight
deregulation which
AIRPORT STATISTICS
IATA code: MEM
ICAO code: KMEM
Location: N35°2.55’ W89°58.60’
Elevation: 340ft (104m)
Runways: 09/27 8,946 x 150ft
(2,727 x 46m)
18C/36C 11,120 x 150ft
(3,389 x 46m)
18L/36R 9,000 x 150ft
(2,743 x 46m)
18R/36L 9,320 x 150ft
(2,841 x 46m)
Frequencies: Approach 119.1, 125.8
Departure 124.15, 124.65
Tower 118.3, 119.7, 128.425
Website: http://www.fl ymemphis.comExtreme Airports // 37LEFT: FedEx
Express has
turned cargo
handling into an
art form. (FedEx
Express)
BELOW LEFT:
Cargo is loaded
onto a Boeing
777-200F.
ABOVE: MD-11Fs
are deployed
on long-range
services.
BELOW: The
aprons at the
World Hub can
accommodate 165
jet aircra .34-41_Memphis.indd 37 11/05/2018 12:44