FedEx yesterday celebrated its 35th anniversary after having launched operations in 1973 as thefirst express delivery company offering overnight shipments using its own fleet of aircraft.
Founded by chairman and CEO Frederick W. Smith, Federal Express, as the company wasoriginally called, sorted 186 packages to 25 cities on its first night of operations. Since thenFedEx has risen to become a global company employing today about 141,000 employees and handling anaverage daily volume of more than 7.5 million shipments. The company now has 671 aircraft and morethan 44,500 vehicles servicing 220 countries in its integrated global network.
FedEx is the youngest of the four global express operators. UPS celebrated its 100thanniversary last year, TNT Express celebrated two years ago the 60th anniversary of its firstoperations in Australia in 1956. DHL was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by A. Dalsey, L. Hillblomand R. Lynn.
