Industry History | FedEx — Fourteen Falcons and 186 Packages on the First Night
· 1973-4
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Industry History | FedEx — Fourteen Falcons and 186 Packages on the First Night
kevin
People treat FedEx as a Memphis campus that arrived already named SuperHub and overnight.
The first sort left here, from Memphis International Airport, on 17 April 1973.
Frederick W. Smith had incorporated Federal Express in Little Rock on 24 June 1971.
He moved the work to Memphis because the field sat near the middle of the country, closed less often for weather, and the airport authority would make room for a night sort.
That night 389 people and 14 Dassault Falcon jets moved 186 packages to 25 U.S. cities.
The planes were converted Falcon 20s, held by Civil Aeronautics Board taxi rules to payloads under 7,500 pounds.
The word Federal was chosen to sound national, and in the hope of winning Federal Reserve check work that never became the core trade.
Congress opened the cargo skies in 1977 with Public Law 95-163. Seven Boeing 727s followed.
The company listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1978 as FDX. The World Hub opened beside the runways in 1981.
The passenger terminal still faces Democrat Road. The night sort still runs on the cargo side.
In August 2026 the field was renamed Frederick W. Smith International Airport. The Falcons came first.
Photo: CrhCatracha, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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