Total Service Disruption today?

Purplepackage

Well-Known Member
It's fine. The weather has caused the labor shortage. Management came up with the brilliant idea to start our night sort 2 hours early to get a head start on rollover. They forget they're asking partime workers who get 20 hours a week to drop everything, forget about their other jobs and head in early and stay late. So we had drivers, dg agents and even a few ramp agents unloading cans just to have empty cans for our outbound operation.

Just be safe, nothing anyone can do at this point lol
 

MemphisHubFedExer

Well-Known Member
The weather service predicted the ice a week in advance but how can you blame Fedex if airports are closed and streets are iced over? I believe many parts of the country got hit by ice. Just because you know its coming, there isn't much you can do when you are at the mercy of the airports keeping runways clear and providing save conditions for flights.

You have to remember, they are only boxes. There is no reason to risk a bad accident to get them delivered.
Hell, if it wasn't for FedEx, Memphis international would be :censored2: out of luck too. Fedex snow plows take care of all the runways. Memphis city and airport snow plows are a joke.
 

MemphisHubFedExer

Well-Known Member
It really is a little more complicated than that, not carrying water for them though
Your right, it's almost impossible to get that many contractors and company trucks lined up for that kind of job. And even if we could, Memphis isn't designed to load and unload that many trucks. Plus whatever weather hits Memphis usually moves east which is gonna severely impact road transit times as well.
 

Operational needs

Virescit Vulnere Virtus
Your right, it's almost impossible to get that many contractors and company trucks lined up for that kind of job. And even if we could, Memphis isn't designed to load and unload that many trucks. Plus whatever weather hits Memphis usually moves east which is gonna severely impact road transit times as well.
I heard a rumor that one of the problems was that FedEx ran out of de-icer. Any truth to that or you don’t know about that stuff?
 

MemphisHubFedExer

Well-Known Member
I heard a rumor that one of the problems was that FedEx ran out of de-icer. Any truth to that or you don’t know about that stuff?
100% true. About an hour before they they knew we were going to run out, they gave all the guys on the outbound a 6 pack, so when it came time to launch the flight, we could just take a leak on the wings.

Honestly I have no clue, I just know the ice was making it take twice as long.
 

Operational needs

Virescit Vulnere Virtus
100% true. About an hour before they they knew we were going to run out, they gave all the guys on the outbound a 6 pack, so when it came time to launch the flight, we could just take a leak on the wings.

Honestly I have no clue, I just know the ice was making it take twice as long.
Keep up the good work. We WILL get those packages delivered......eventually. Lol.
 

Star B

White Lightening
Honestly I have no clue, I just know the ice was making it take twice as long.
Ice is a bitch. In my pax airport days.... We had an ice storm overnight.. threw our whole pax operation upside down. I was flying out to Myrtle Beach... I even stepped in on my day off and started helping the agents at the gate. Every plane was late out by hours, we had our two trucks, the FedEx trucks, and the airport FBO truck working on our planes. Each plane was covered in about three inches of ice. from nose to tail. We first started with getting any door open so that we could fire up the APU or attach the ground heat and try to work the problem from both sides of the ice.

We went thru a few thousand gallons of fluid for 4 planes and we were mixing it at the highest legal ratio of water/glycol to save fluid. We were down to the bottom of our tank when we were done. We were refilled the next day because every pax airport in the state ordered more type 1 so the tankers were headed this way the day before the ice storm.


Hell, if it wasn't for FedEx, Memphis international would be :censored2: out of luck too. Fedex snow plows take care of all the runways. Memphis city and airport snow plows are a joke.
Well, once Delta dehubbed MEM, I bet the airport authority scaled back on their winter ops and Express stepped up as being the largest operator out of there..


Driving on the ramp was hysterical. We had tugs pushing other tugs just to get freight to the gate.
Do you guys not have chains you could have tossed on the tugs and/or sand to lay down? I know salt is forbidden but we always sanded the friend out of our ramps.

Yes Ma'am, stay safe.
You as well. We'll do our part as soon as you do what you can. I'm just thankful this didn't happen a month prior.
 
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dezguy

Well-Known Member
Meanwhile, our management team continues to make excuses for why stuff has been late every day this week. Everything from issues getting freight over the border to bad weather.

Why all the secrecy? Why can't you just say Memphis int'l messed up and didn't have enough de over one day and they've been playing catch up?
 

Oldfart

Well-Known Member
Meanwhile, our management team continues to make excuses for why stuff has been late every day this week. Everything from issues getting freight over the border to bad weather.

Why all the secrecy? Why can't you just say Memphis int'l messed up and didn't have enough de over one day and they've been playing catch up?
Before making dumb statements, why not look at the weather Memphis had since last Thursday. First ice, them more ice, then snow. Single digit temps made it even worse. Schools have been out for a week, government offices have been closed most of the week. I can sign in to my parents security cameras and their street is still covered in ice.

Someone mentioned putting chains on the tugs. I would imagine there are several hundred tugs at the hub. I imagine it would take several days to put chains on that many tires.
 

SmithBarney

Well-Known Member
Meanwhile, our management team continues to make excuses for why stuff has been late every day this week. Everything from issues getting freight over the border to bad weather.

Why all the secrecy? Why can't you just say Memphis int'l messed up and didn't have enough de over one day and they've been playing catch up?

No secrecy, just complete lack of communication... for a company that should thrive on information, half the time the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
 

Cactus

Just telling it like it is
No secrecy, just complete lack of communication... for a company that should thrive on information, half the time the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
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