[HN Gopher] Primer on FedEx's Distribution Network (2024)
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Primer on FedEx's Distribution Network (2024)
Author : hyperific
Score : 135 points
Date : 2025-09-29 01:18 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ontheseams.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ontheseams.substack.com)
| vwcx wrote:
| Was excited to read about a fascinating topic but the second
| paragraph under the 'Express' heading accidentally cites a
| virtual airline's website rather than Fedex itself -- a problem
| that unfortunately throws into question the accuracy of the rest
| of the article for me.
|
| _Remarkably, FedEx has its own map of every airport it services,
| along with routes, flight times, operators, and aircraft
| types.https://fedexvirtual.crewsystem.net/route_map.php _
| eddyg wrote:
| Indeed...
|
| https://www.fdxva.org/ https://www.fdx-virtual.com/
| https://flyfdx-vac.org/
| iradik wrote:
| As someone who relies on overnight 2-3 times per week, I have to
| say FedEx expresss (air) is a logistical wonder but unfortunately
| the packages still have to hit the ground to get to your door.
| And the ground service is a joke at least in SF. I never knew
| this but ground delivery drivers are not employees instead they
| are all independent contractors. Quite often packages come
| several days late. The driver will also falsely mark item as
| delivered or that no one was available. Customer support cannot
| reach anyone at the SF hub/station. I once went to the station
| and had to wait an hour before someone talked to me. I've heard
| they've had many layoffs and completely shut down the Oakland
| hub. Also heard UPS is much better and pays drivers better (they
| are union). If I didn't get a 90% personal discount thru my work
| I would never use them.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I prefer getting packages delivered to a pickup point and doing
| the last mile myself. Although it restricts you to picking up
| during business hours I don't have to worry about something
| going wrong with it actually being delivered.
| iradik wrote:
| I would try that but then I'd have to change the delivery
| location after the shipment which can create an additional
| "change location" delay. It still has to be delivered to a
| FedEx store as well unless you are going to the station which
| can be a trek.
| Tarball10 wrote:
| Might depend on location but I've always had Express packages
| delivered by a dedicated Express truck. Which feels wasteful
| sometimes when both a Ground and Express truck come down my
| street within the same hour.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly, my understanding was Express were owned/crewed by
| FedEx, whereas Ground are contractors and vary in skill and
| dedication.
|
| But apparently you can GIVE a package to either and it ends
| up in the right place, eventually (better to give ground to
| express).
| jeffbee wrote:
| I still think of "FedEx Ground" as an acquisition/rebrand
| and I would not be surprised to learn that the integration
| between Ground and Actual FedEx is still minimal.
| gedy wrote:
| True, wasn't this like Evergreen?
| bombcar wrote:
| This is (or was the last time I was more directly
| involved) still how it was; FedEx Ground, Freight, and
| Express were basically three separate companies, with
| different portals, phones, and service levels.
|
| UPS was much more integrated, though Freight is still a
| _bit_ disconnected.
| bdcravens wrote:
| It's touched on here:
|
| > Unlike with Ground, which will send a driver out for the
| day to do pickups/deliveries, Express drivers typically have
| to work around time-committed packages, meeting one or a few
| loop deadlines for the day, doing on-call pickups, and making
| a certain number of required delivery attempts.
|
| Various Express services have very hard deadlines (For
| example, Fedex 2nd Day AM is 10:30AM), whereas Ground/Home
| Delivery can be delivered at any time during it's commitment
| date and still be on-time. If a package is late by even a
| minute then the shipper is entitled to a full refund (with
| exceptions for things like weather), so the Express side
| doesn't want Ground slowing it down (plus they were two
| different organizations at one point, and are still pretty
| siloed).
|
| (I'm the lead developer for Refund Retriever, and our primary
| line of business is auditing Fedex/UPS for those late
| refunds)
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| I've run into the "falsely marked as delivered" thing a few
| times (at home, wfh). Last time I called and threw a shit fit
| and the rep gave me the usual run around about "how you must
| have simply missed the delivery" or "maybe you didn't hear the
| doorbell" or whatever BS. I basically said "Look, I've got a
| security camera on my front door. I've pulled the video at the
| timestamp saying I'm not home. The truck isn't even on my
| street, let alone at my door. What's your email address and
| I'll send it to you?"
|
| They always demure saying it isn't necessary, they can't accept
| it, yada yada. And somehow always insist that they can't get
| ahold of the local distro manager, and just to wait until
| tomorrow (in this case this was "Attempt" 2 of 3, both of which
| were a lie). I had to upgrade to the nuclear response "I'm
| going to send this video to the corporation who sent me the
| item to show them that FedEx is actively lying on their
| delivery statuses. And I'll CC our local news team who's bored
| and happy to burn down corporations because they've got nothing
| else going on." Turns out they actually CAN get a message to
| the local distribution manager (no shit, I know that) who CAN
| call me to apologize and the truck magically finds its way to
| my house by the end of the day.
|
| I'm not sure who to be ticked with or feel bad for. The drivers
| are typically the ones being abused, so I sort of feel bad for
| them. But also... stop freaking lying. Don't say you tried when
| you did. It wasn't even something that required signature. All
| you had to do was to walk the 15 steps from the truck, chuck it
| as hard as you can towards my porch (because... of course they
| do), and call it a day.
| bombcar wrote:
| Part of it is (sometimes) employees working "off the clock"
| where they'll mark a bunch of shit delivered, and then come
| back later when they're not "paid" and deliver them - because
| it prevents overtime and they still meet their targets.
| Greed wrote:
| Why do they do that? Are they penalized for working
| overtime too often?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They work for contractors -- alot of the companies that
| used to do stuff like newspaper and courier delivery got
| into this, but it varies dramatically be region.
|
| For the lousy contractors, it's sort of an uncanny valley
| between UPS and a crowdsourced model like DoorDash or
| Laser. The employees are sketch. At work, i used them to
| ship WFH user equipment -- they'd do shit like deliver
| laptops to dumpsters at apartment complexes (complete
| with pictures). In NYC, the couriers park on a side
| street, stack packages on the street and have casual
| labor deliver them.
|
| I've also had bad experiences with dropboxes where the
| couriers pilfer high value items - return iphones in
| particular. They get misdelivered to incorrect addresses
| on purpose.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yes. The shipper (the smaller local organization that
| FedEx or Amazon contracts with) turns around and hires
| drivers. FedEx pays the contract _company_ per piece, the
| company turns around and pays the drivers _per hour_.
|
| FedEx has some mystical software that helps them gauge
| how many employees per delivery, etc they need, but that
| stuff always leans toward "perfect scenarios". End result
| is the driver is asked to be perfect or more than
| perfect, never break any laws, never get delayed by
| ringing doorbells, etc, and still get all the deliveries
| done.
|
| One easy way out for the driver is to mark everything in
| the computer as it is supposed to be, and then go back
| and fix it later (which eventually doesn't happen - there
| are stories about it).
|
| UPS has something similar, but the drivers get paid
| overtime and are more unionized (protected) but even THEY
| will pull the above bullshit because there are often
| _federal_ laws about truck drivers that they 're skirting
| around.
|
| I've seen my normal UPS driver stop by my house past 10PM
| near Christmas, dressed in normal street clothes and in
| his minivan with family, to drop off ap package that had
| been marked as delivered earlier in the day.
|
| The above is why more and more of the systems require the
| driver to take a _picture_ of the delivery, which of
| course adds time, and slows things down ...
| bdcravens wrote:
| My boss actually caught them lying one time on camera.
| They're incentivized to lie, since a late delivery is
| entitled to a full refund (for the shipper) and loss of
| revenue.
|
| (I work for Refund Retriever; we audit for late deliveries
| for Fedex/UPS)
| Aurornis wrote:
| FedEx has been the source of the majority of my delivery
| problems, too.
|
| I remember one time I sat outside our office and waited for the
| FedEx truck to come up because the driver had a habit of
| skipping deliveries and marking them as delivered. I watched
| the driver go through our office complex but just not stop at
| the back row of buildings.
|
| Trying to call FedEx customer support was its own frustration.
| The person on the phone told me some story about how they
| couldn't actually get any info about the drivers or their
| deliveries at the end of the delivery chain. There was no
| interest at all in the driver who was skipping deliveries, but
| the person on the phone didn't seem surprised.
| vikrantrathore wrote:
| One reason the quality of service at UPS has traditionally
| been stronger than at FedEx is that most UPS drivers are
| full-time employees rather than contractors or temporary
| staff. Many UPS drivers are able to earn a good living, often
| better than their peers at other companies including FedEx
| [0][1]. By contrast, some logistics companies pursue cost
| savings by classifying drivers as self-employed contractors,
| thereby avoiding social security contributions and other
| employee benefits. UPS's approach reflects the vision of its
| founders, who believed a company cannot thrive unless it
| takes care of its employees.
|
| However, the financial markets, which tend to reward short-
| term returns and a "winner-takes-all" mindset, have often
| penalized UPS for this philosophy. In recent years, to
| satisfy investor demands, UPS management has also turned
| toward cost-cutting measures. This shift coincided with
| leadership changes, as the current CEO came from outside the
| company. External leaders often emphasize sales and marketing
| over operations, and UPS has followed this trend. As a
| result, UPS, FedEx, and Amazon are now competing in a cost-
| reduction race, prioritizing sales growth while reducing
| operational staff--changes that inevitably affect service
| quality.
|
| One critical element still missing from the broader logistics
| landscape is a truly integrated, multi-modal framework that
| seamlessly combines air, road, rail, and water transport to
| meet diverse customer needs. While rail may be less
| applicable in the U.S., it plays a vital role in Europe,
| China, Japan, and India and could be leveraged more
| effectively. Perhaps modern logistics theory should evolve to
| reflect this more holistic, global perspective.
|
| [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/18/ups-drivers-can-earn-as-
| much...
|
| [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-drivers-170000-pay-
| benefits...
| hhh wrote:
| Stay private as long as you can...
| nkrisc wrote:
| Our UPS driver lives in our neighborhood. It's a middle
| class suburban neighborhood, a nice, quiet place to live.
| That he can afford to live here is great. Needless to say,
| we get excellent UPS service. Very nice guy, too.
| nradov wrote:
| Rail is _more_ applicable in the U.S. than in any of those
| other countries. We are the world leader in freight rail
| volume. Obviously it 's not generally used for overnight
| delivery.
|
| https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-
| development/freight-r...
|
| As for financial markets, your blame is misplaced. This
| industry is tremendously price sensitive and it seems many
| customers are willing to accept somewhat worse reliability
| and service quality in exchange for lower prices. It's
| similar to passenger airlines in that regard.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| UPS is also the largest Teamsters Union employer in the
| country (300k members)
|
| https://about.ups.com/us/en/newsroom/negotiations/negotiati
| o...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| UPS is pretty close to this. UPS Ground will usually load
| stuff onto multi-modal containers and ship via rail where
| practical. Fedex does for east->west coast, but they seem
| to do alot of relayed truck shipping.
|
| Rail is almost always cheaper, and has mostly displaced
| long haul trucking.
|
| The missing link is water, and the Jones Act, which was
| specifically intended to destroy intra-US shipping in favor
| of trucking, has been incredibly successful in doing just
| that.
| presentation wrote:
| I live in Japan - when I see a package was sent to me with
| FedEx I feel a great sense of dread.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| > "independent contractors"
|
| I worked one Christmas for SF's FedEx Ground 20 years ago. It's
| worth noting FedEx routes are (were?) owned by drivers, who
| would subcontract the routes to seasonal labor like myself.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| > have to hit the ground to get to your door.
|
| Maybe the really high priority packages can be dropped out of
| the plane and delivered with a drone
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Fedex is the worst. I live in a house with a wooden fence all
| around. The sidewalk goes to the gate to get to the front door.
| Once fedex delivered something to my back deck where there is
| no sidewalk.
|
| My parents live in a rural area. Two story house with a clear
| front and back door. Fedex decided to deliver a package by
| putting it on the storm cellar door on the side of the house.
| alexjplant wrote:
| 20 years or so ago FedEx beat the pants off of UPS in my
| limited experience. The only thing brown did for me [1] was
| play football with my Newegg packages and bust them open which,
| for a child spending their entire net worth on a video card,
| was rather disheartening. Over the years this trend reversed to
| the point that I actively avoid FedEx so that my package
| arrives in one piece at my doorstep instead of at their
| distribution center with a giant hole ripped in the side of it.
|
| I wonder whether Amazon's scale forced UPS to up their game
| when they were shipping partners. It's also very possible that
| my experience is completely anecdotal.
|
| [1] https://wanderingeye.marketing/remember-that-ad-campaign-
| wha...
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| If Express is being encroached upon, maybe it needs to start
| doing weekend pickup/delivery.
|
| When they can pack superhighways overnight with self-driving
| semis, it's going to get cheaper and better. I still am
| frustrated with self-driving that they are obsessed with city
| taxis. Self-driving on highways is so much simpler to automate,
| and a whole lot more useful to me as a midwest driver.
|
| And what's the state of drone delivery for last mile? Fedex
| envelopes would seem to be perfect for them.
| ghaff wrote:
| Last mile seems to work well enough at the moment.
|
| I do agree though, that I'm far more interested in limited
| access highway self-driving that urban.
| cameldrv wrote:
| It's not clear to me that on balance highway driving is easier.
| The physics of a Semi going 65 mph are more relatively
| constrained. You can't just solve all of your problems by
| slamming on the brakes like you almost can in city traffic.
| Even though the interstate is designed to mitigate this, the
| tails are probably just as bad, ie, pedestrian suddenly jumps
| out into the road. It doesn't happen as often as it does in the
| city, but it does happen, and at 65mph pulling 80 tons, it's a
| lot more demanding problem.
|
| That said, a semi going through the night on the interstate can
| make some serious miles and is competitive with an airplane for
| a whole lot of what needs to be delivered.
| Prime_Axiom wrote:
| The true backbone of the American economy, the logistics network
| and supply chain. Most do not think about how their cheap Chinese
| plastic garbage is delivered to their door, only how quickly and
| for the lowest cost. If you really think about it, the engine of
| our consumption based economy is the humble cardboard box and
| pallet. Take stuff out of one box to put in another box so it can
| be opened somewhere else and be placed in another box to be
| opened up again and thrown away.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| I don't think FedEx has ever been correct about a delivery to our
| address in NC. We just add one or two days to every estimated
| delivery and don't stress about it but I just can't believe they
| keep underestimating.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I have never given this a lot attention. I learned a few things
| from the post and I am always grateful for that.
|
| One question that popped into my head is that with that having a
| fleet that big the company must be rather vulnerable if the
| number of packages decreases significantly over even a small
| amount of time.
|
| Operating a fleet like that, and probably have lot of flights
| that cannot be canceled, to save money, given the propagation
| problems that would create downstream.
|
| In a highly improbable hypothesis of a day without any package at
| all, the cost must be in the two digit millions
|
| I dont think there is ever a day without packages but there are
| slow days and incredibly busy days.
| Hilift wrote:
| > By far the largest Express sort facilities are in Memphis ...
|
| I once worked for well known company with a large presence in
| Memphis. Our mostly empty parking lot was a mobile location for
| the city's new network of gunshot detectors. In Memphis I would
| guess 80% of residents carry firearms for protection.
|
| https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/a/aos009983-memphis-poli...
| bahmboo wrote:
| My most recent $75 overnight via FedEx Express was not delivered
| on time (day late which mattered and why I spent so much) and
| they straight up lied about it. Only anecdata but sad to hear so
| many concurring stories.
| rkomorn wrote:
| FedEx lost the paperwork I overnighted to try and get my dog
| unstuck from customs during an international (California to EU)
| move and gave me the runaround for 3 days telling me "it'll be
| delivered tomorrow!"
|
| UPS got it there in under 24h.
|
| Weeks later I got a "your package was delivered!" email from
| FedEx. Fantastic stuff.
|
| Needless to say I'm never proactively choosing them again.
| coherentpony wrote:
| Not totally orthogonal, and quite interesting:
| https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6723
| perks_12 wrote:
| So now that they have such a good network, they decide to worsen
| it just so people buy their express services more? Damn it,
| business schools ruin the world.
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