Patrick Fitzgerald, FedEx Service senior vice president, sat down with Fox Business on Cyber Monday to candidly discuss the possibility of Sunday deliveries, the future for seasonal hires, and the much debated hot topic of Amazon drones.
Gearing up for one of the busiest shipping weeks of the year, Fitzgerald said the delivery service was expected to ship roughly 22 million packages on Cyber Monday, an 11% increase compared to 2012. FedEx, he said, also expects to ship 85 million packages this week alone.
On Dec. 1, Amazon announced during an episode of 60 Minutes that it was hoping to deliver orders via drones by 2015. Amazon Prime Air, according to episode, is planning to get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.
When asked if FedEx has anything up their sleeves that would mirror the drone service, Fitzgerald said, “We put a lot of focus on technology, but that is not to say we have any plans and we certainly don’t have any drones in the network and there are not plans related to that specific technology at this point.”
But FedEx doesn’t need to rely on drones in order to get goods quickly to consumers, it all comes down to the human connection, according to Fitzgerald. “Speed is important, reliability is important, and when you get to volumes, 22 million packages for example, to delivery speed and reliability, our customers expect a lot of that based on our team members, our couriers, our drivers, and the people that run our network,” he said.
Amazon’s recently-announced partnership with the U.S. Postal Service to expand delivery for Amazon Prime members to include Sundays. When asked if FedEx was planning to do the same, Fitzpatrick said while nothing is set in stone yet, “we will meet the demand of Sunday if it is there.”
Erin Lynch is the senior content producer at Multichannel Merchant. Erin can be reached (203)899-8461 or connect with her socially on Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.