Article is months old. It through me when it stated a sharp drop in stock quote, when in fact just a few days ago there was a nice sized spike.
I certainly don't think the overnight market is dead, but FedEx would prefer that we think of it that way. Even if the Express market was expanding rapidly, Fred would still be looking to Ground because there is more profit there, plain and simple. Even though he gets Express employees cheap, Ground non-employees are a gift from Heaven because they are practically free in comparison to a UPS driver.
The highest-compensated Ground drivers I am aware of are making around $750 per week. Subtract 2 weeks of unpaid vacation, and you're in at $34,500 per year...and that is paid by the contractor, not Fred, although Fred, of course, pays the contractors. Zero benefit costs, no retirement, no vehicles...only facilities, terminal management and handler costs. Pretty sweet.
Compare that to UPS. At $31 per hour for only 40 hrs per week, with 2 weeks paid vacation...that's $64,480, not including overtime, excellent benefits, and a generous pension plan. Big Brown also gets to pay for a huge vehicle fleet, mechanics to service it, and all of it's facilities and their respective employees. My guess is that the average UPS driver is making around $80,000 per year,
before you add-in the cost of benefits.
How can Fred not make a killing with the gift he has been given, and it IS a gift, make no mistake. If Fred were forced to play by the rules, a lot of his advantages would evaporate overnight, and then Ground would have to fail or succeed based on good management, not an illegal scam that should be stopped. If we had to rely only upon intelligent management, UPS would squash Ground like a bug.