FedEx shipping network expects to haul 50 million packages this week
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John Dionise, who drives for FedEx Home, at the company' North Side terminal. -
John Dionise, who drives for FedEx Home, at the company' North Side terminal. Darcy Underwood and others on the slide sorter at the FedEx terminal on Neville Island each sort between 800 and 1,000 packages an hour.
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John Dionise climbed into his panel van outside of a house in Hopewell as the radio played "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."
In reality, Santa's helper was already there.
Mr. Dionise, 34, of Moon, actually is more like Santa's foreman. As an independent contractor for FedEx Home, he has hired 16 other men to deliver packages for the next 11 days.
The goal, he said, is to have every package where it needs to be by the end of the day on Christmas Eve.
There is no season for deliveries like this one.
Mr. Dionise's favorite season always has been Christmas. He used to spend a few days every year during the weeks before Christmas in New York City, taking in the sites, getting the feel of the city during the holidays.
That trip has been on hold the past four years: This is his fourth "peak," as they say at FedEx.
This week, FedEx, with all of its networks (FedEx Express, FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight) expects to move more than 50 million packages. FedEx Ground and its division, FedEx Home, are based in Moon.
"It's a tough time of year for the drivers," Mr. Dionise said.
From Thanksgiving to Christmas the drivers have the same routine every night: "You go home, you eat and fall asleep."
Then, it's back on the road again, trying to empty their vans before dark when it gets hard to see the house numbers.
FedEx drivers are equipped with scanners that let the company know when packages are delivered. There is a route sheet with turn-by-turn directions on it that tells drivers how to get to every house, or at least, how to get near every house. The "turn bys" as Mr. Dionise calls them, do not account for the Pittsburgh area's unique layout in which streets disappear in the middle, or where they can be completely separate but have the same name. Such as Morrow Way in Hopewell, which is either one right off of Brodhead, or another, two streets down.
The "turn bys" also do not list where the house number is located. Some people have their house numbers next to the door, some above. Some people paint their house numbers on rocks. Other people have them on the gutters. Some forget to redo their numbers when they are no longer legible. And then there are those houses with numbers on signs in itty bitty print. Luckily, Mr. Dionise has really sharp eyes.
Before any packages hit a doorstep, they have to go through the system.
FedEx actually has four systems, one for FedEx Express, which is what most people probably think of when they think of Federal Express, the overnight letter business that is sorted in Memphis, Tenn.
Then there is FedEx Freight, which handles large loads.
FedEx Ground is a mostly business-to-business method of shipping, and FedEx Home is the company with the trucks that go mostly to residences.
In the company sorting facilities, the packages flow along the conveyor belts like leaves on a river. Workers unload trucks from businesses and place the packages on the conveyor that takes them to the first team of sorters. This time of year there are 54 people working each of the three sorts, four hours of sorting boxes that come off trucks, at the Neville Island FedEx facility.
The packages then travel to a slide where they drop down to another crew of a dozen people equipped with scanners on their arms and hands that read the labels and display a number to tell them if the boxes go to conveyer one, two or three.
Each of those sorters handles between 800 and 1,000 boxes an hour, sending them to another team that determines onto which truck they will be loaded.
Mr. Dionise runs trucks for FedEx Home. His drivers start work at about 6:30 a.m. with their packages already laid out on palettes. The company gives them a manifest that lists each package and the vehicle routing sheet with the turn-by-turn directions.
Mr. Dionise started as a fill-in driver during the peak season four years ago.
He had been a fullback on the Duquesne football team and worked as a personal trainer in Sewickley before deciding to switch careers. He took a job as a temporary driver to see if he liked FedEx. As he worked, he got to know men who owned multiple FedEx routes, and bought a route when another owner decided to give it up.
Now, with six full routes and two supplementary routes, he has had to incorporate as a small business and hire an accountant. He drives and delivers, carrying boxes of all sizes from WalMart.com, J.C. Penney and Toys R Us to porches and doorsteps, wrapping those that are not under good cover. Then he runs back and looks at the list to see where he has to go next.
Mr. Dionise said he knows the nation is in a recession, but that he isn't seeing much evidence of it by what he is delivering this season. Last week, someone looking out the window at Mr. Dionise's FedEx van would have seen him essentially leapfrogging a pair of UPS delivery men working together in a van. And then, in a moment of delivery choreography, the UPS truck had to slalom past a U.S. Postal Service truck on the left and Mr. Dionise on the right to get to its next stop.
FedEx is expecting its busiest day will be even busier than last year based on a projection, from Forrester Research Inc., of an 8 percent increase in online holiday shopping. Last year on its busiest day -- always two Mondays before Christmas -- the company handled 12 million packages, this year's projection of 13 million is the kickoff for a week in which it expects 50 million parcels will move through the system.
Mr. Dionise is just one of the 275,000 people who will move that load. In the van, after running to a house with a package, he said it did tend to be a workout. Just a couple of weeks ago he had to buy two of his drivers smaller pants.
Unlike the real Santa, though, FedEx drivers don't have cookies and milk waiting at every stop.
First Published December 13, 2009 12:00 am
