Aviation Specials – May 2018

alone. The procession will be complete

by 0430 and all that will be left are white

tail lights, fading into the distance. But

the process will repeat again, albeit

slightly less intensively, when the daytime

sort starts at 0800. By then the night

shift will be asleep at home, and the skies

around Memphis will have had a short

respite from the intense aerial activity

the world’s largest express logistics fi rm

brings with it.

Further growth

Although passenger throughput at MEM

has declined substantially, on the cargo

side FedEx is not standing still and the

company expects to invest $1bn over the

next few years. The Memphis Hub

Transformation Project will rebuild and

expand parts of the site, which includes

demolishing older obsolete buildings,

some dating back to the fi rm’s launch in

1973 or even earlier to World War Two.

In their place will come new aircraft

MEMPHIS

Extreme Airports // 41

LEFT: Boeing

777-FS2 N889FD is

pushed back ready

for departure to

Paris Charles de

Gaulle.

ABOVE: Airbus

A300 freighters

fl y high-capacity

routes to domestic

destinations and

cities in Canada.

BELOW: Memphis

is just seven miles

(11km) from the

airport – a large

proportion of its

workforce is em-

ployed by FedEx

Express.

maintenance facility, seven new aircraft

parking stands and associated support

facilities at the western end of the site.

More to come

The express logistics business is gradually

changing. Electronic document exchange

and email is reducing the volume of le ers

being shipped, but the massive growth

in e-commerce and the rise of just-in-

time production makes the reliable and

rapid movement of high-priority items

absolutely vital.

Memphis continues to be an ideal place

for FedEx to do business, and even its

arch-rival UPS is ge ing in on the act.

The la er is investing $80m and will

increase its facilities from 3,200,000 to

4,500,000sq ft (293,000m^2 to 424,400m^2 )

over the next few years, enabling the

fi rm to handle 59,800 packages and

documents per hour. That is a long way

short of FedEx’s local capability, but it

demonstrates the courier business still

has room to grow. So, it is inevitable

that the night skies above Tennessee will

remain as crowded as ever – if not busier

• over the coming decades.

parking stands, conveyor systems

and enlarged warehouses. The draft

environmental evaulation states: “... an

outdated package sorting facility would

be replaced with facilities specifi cally

designed to accommodate modernised,

more effi cient equipment compatible

with [FedEx’s] current aircraft fl eet.”

FedEx claims the project will make the

hub more effi cient and is not designed to

create additional capacity.

The plans include a 328,000sq ft

(30,472m^2 ), 100ft (30m) high, four-level

secondary sorting facility to the west of

the current main building. It is designed

to optimise confi guration of ‘the sort’ and

support a more effi cient fl ow of ground

support vehicles. A 65,000sq ft (6,039m^2 )

Bulk Truck Load building connected to

the rest of the site by conveyor bridges is

also in the pipeline, along with a 6,000sq

ft (557m^2 ) ground support equipment

34-41_Memphis.indd 41 11/05/2018 12:46