TechGrrl
Space Cadet
I haven't been able to confirm this on my own, but it does make some sense. Express aircraft are flying with many voids on them, and if they can fill up those spaces with Ground freight out of the Memphis market, they can cut a day or two on shipping time to the east and west coasts. By moving Ground packages at "Express" speed, FedEx may be trying to steal market share from UPS out of the Memphis market and possibly the entire south east.
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It would be all part of the charade of FedEx claiming Express and Ground are two separate operating companies, but are cooperating with each other at every opportunity.
Just a dumb ex-UPSer here, but how does this strategy steal market share from UPS? Don't you think UPS (which really IS integrated) doesn't use this same strategy as well? Also, it only works if you have empty space on the premium transport mode. Once the economy starts to recover, it become insane to fill that space with 'cheap' stuff instead of 'premium' stuff. At that point, you dump that volume back into your slower ground system, and all those customers who got used to caviar service at McDonald's prices get seriously annoyed....