50 Fun Facts About FedEx

FedEx was founded in 1971 in which city, before moving its operations two years later?

Fred Smith left after Little Rock's airport showed little interest in supporting his airline for packages.

Which city is home to FedEx's headquarters and its main air hub?

Nearly 400 FedEx flights a day leave the city's airport, mostly at night.

Fred Smith first sketched the idea for a next-day delivery network in what?

His professor was unimpressed; Smith later said he could not remember the grade he got.

Before shortening it in 1994, what was FedEx's full original name?

'FedEx' had been the nickname for years, and it was made official for marketing purposes.

On its first night of operations in April 1973, how many packages did FedEx carry?

Fourteen small jets linked 25 US cities that night; by the 2020s the Memphis hub was handling over a million packages a night.

The company began nightly service in 1973 with a fleet of fourteen small jets made by which manufacturer?

The Falcon 20s were business jets converted to carry cargo; the airline could not buy big aircraft until deregulation in 1977.

Legend says FedEx's Fred Smith turned the company's last $5,000 into $27,000 in Las Vegas playing what?

He had just been turned down for capital by General Dynamics in Chicago when he impulsively hopped on a flight west.

Complete the famous FedEx slogan: 'When it absolutely, positively has to be there ...'

The tag ran under the 'Fast Paced World' commercial starring John Moschitta Jr., television's fastest talker.

After the 1977 Airline Deregulation Act, what were the first large aircraft FedEx bought?

Seven 727-100s joined the fleet; by the 2020s FedEx flew the world's largest fleet of wide-body cargo jets.

ZapMail, launched in 1984 and a costly flop, was a FedEx service for sending what?

It promised up to five pages delivered in under two hours for $35, and lost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

Which cargo airline did FedEx buy in the late 1980s, becoming the world's largest full-service cargo airline?

The deal brought international routes and a much bigger fleet.

FedEx Ground began life as RPS, a subsidiary of which company FedEx bought in 1998?

The purchase turned an overnight air courier into a company that also did ground parcels, expedited freight and logistics.

Which chain of copy shops did FedEx buy in 2004 and later rename FedEx Office?

The chain had grown from a single sidewalk copy machine beside UC Santa Barbara in 1970.

Kinko's founder Paul Orfalea got his nickname from what?

He opened the first shop in 1970 with a single sidewalk copy machine in Isla Vista, California.

In 2015 FedEx paid €4.4 billion for TNT Express, a courier headquartered in which country?

TNT had long been based in Hoofddorp, near Amsterdam.

TNT, bought by FedEx in 2015, started in 1946 with a single truck in which city?

The initials stood for Thomas Nationwide Transport, after founder Ken Thomas.

What is hidden in the negative space of the FedEx wordmark, between the 'E' and the 'x'?

A custom typeface based on Univers and Futura makes the arrow appear, symbolising speed and precision.

Who designed the FedEx wordmark in 1994?

The logo has won dozens of design awards and is a staple of 'hidden meaning' lists.

Which two colours make up the standard FedEx logo that all units were told to adopt from 2016?

For years each unit had its own second colour, such as green for Ground and red for Freight.

In which 2000 film does Tom Hanks play a FedEx troubleshooter stranded on a desert island?

FedEx lent its Memphis, Los Angeles and Moscow facilities, planes, trucks and uniforms to the production.

Which real person appears as himself when Chuck is welcomed home in the 2000 Tom Hanks film?

The scene was shot at FedEx's own home facilities in Memphis.

Stranded on his island, Tom Hanks's Chuck Noland refuses to open one FedEx package. What is painted on it?

He carries it off the island unopened and delivers it at the end of the film.

Chuck Noland's companion on the island is a volleyball named after which sporting goods brand?

He draws a face on it in his own blood after cutting his hand trying to start a fire.

Starting in 2007, FedEx became title sponsor of the season-long playoffs of which sport?

The FedEx Cup was the first playoff system in men's professional golf.

Which golfer won the FedEx Cup in 2016, 2019 and 2022?

Those three titles set the record; Tiger Woods won it twice, in 2007 and 2009.

From 1999 to 2024, FedEx held the naming rights to the stadium of which NFL team?

Fred Smith had bought a minority share of the team, then the Redskins, in 2003; the ground is now Northwest Stadium.

FedExForum, an arena the company sponsors, is home to which NBA team?

The University of Memphis men's basketball team plays there too.

Which team ran the FedEx-sponsored No. 11 Toyota in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2005 to 2024?

Denny Hamlin drove the purple-and-orange car for the whole of that run.

In which US military branch did Fred Smith serve in Vietnam, earning a Silver Star?

He was a platoon leader and forward air controller, flying in the back seat of an OV-10.

Fred Smith founded the company in June 1971 with how much of his own inherited money?

He then raised a further $91 million in venture capital, a record at the time.

Fred Smith was born in 1944 in Marks, in which state?

His father founded the Toddle House restaurant chain and a bus line that became Dixie Greyhound Lines.

At Yale, Fred Smith belonged to which secret society, alongside future president George W. Bush?

He was also president of the DKE fraternity and flew planes with classmate John Kerry.

Who succeeded Fred Smith as FedEx chief executive in June 2022?

Smith moved up to executive chairman after 51 years running the company he founded.

Which contract, worth about $850 million, did FedEx decline to renew in 2019?

Amazon was only 1.3 percent of FedEx revenue and was rapidly becoming a rival with its own planes and vans.

FedEx's main air hub is called what?

Worldport is the name of rival UPS's hub in Louisville.

Where does FedEx Express have its national US hub, second only to the main one?

Regional hubs include Fort Worth, Greensboro, Miami, Newark, Oakland and Ontario, California.

FedEx opened its first European hub in 1999 at which airport?

A second European hub for Central and Eastern Europe followed at Cologne Bonn in 2010.

Where did FedEx move its Asia-Pacific hub in 2009 after closing the one at Subic Bay in the Philippines?

It was the first time in company history that FedEx had closed a hub.

Which airport in Alaska do both FedEx and UPS use heavily for trans-Pacific shipments?

Its location lets freighters fly between Asia and the US with a full load and refuel halfway.

As of 2018, FedEx's home airport ranked where among the world's cargo airports?

Only Hong Kong handled more; the FedEx hub processes over a million packages a night.

FedEx has pledged to make its operations carbon-neutral by which year?

Part of the $2 billion plan is an all-electric ground fleet, starting with GM's Zevo vans.

In 2023, FedEx Express was the world's largest cargo airline by which measures?

It also had the largest fleet of wide-body civil aircraft anywhere.

On 1 June 2026, which FedEx unit completed a spin-off as an independent company trading as FDXF?

It is the largest less-than-truckload carrier in the United States.

The FedEx Home Delivery logo features which animal carrying a package?

Home Delivery operates only in the US; Canadian residential deliveries are handled by FedEx Ground.

Fred Smith said he chose his hub city for two reasons: its placid weather and what?

He had grown up in Memphis and gone to school there, but pitched the choice as pure logistics.

Fred Smith's FedEx model of routing everything to one central point borrowed from what?

Every package flew to one hub overnight, was sorted, and flew back out, however short the distance.

What was the name of the holding company FedEx reorganised into in October 1997?

It began operations in January 1998 with the Caliber System purchase, and took the FedEx Corporation name in January 2000.

Which Caliber subsidiary was rebranded as FedEx Custom Critical in 2000?

Custom Critical moves urgent, valuable or hazardous items using trucks and chartered aircraft driven by independent owner-operators.

What was the name of FedEx's 2009 ad campaign attacking UPS and the Teamsters union?

Independent observers criticised the wording as 'an abuse of the term' bailout.

By what year had FedEx reached a billion dollars in annual revenue, unusual for a startup that had made no acquisitions?

The company then expanded to Europe and Asia in 1984.