Secret army keeps deliveries on time
UPS, FedEx employ meteorologists to watch the sky for signs of trouble
Deep within a global operations nerve centre in Memphis, a team of specially trained operatives scans data from nearly 200 countries, issues urgent “SNOCON” alerts and tracks a fleet of cargo jets via a glowing, wall- size “war board.”
Their mission? To make sure no Frozen doll is left behind.
They are corporate meteorologists, commanded to help keep hectic holiday shipments on time, snow or shine. And shipping giants in the U. S. increasingly see them as a secret weapon, both in the fight against a brutal winter and in what could be the busiest online shopping season in history.
UPS and FedEx expect to handle a record- breaking 900 million packages this month after the starter pistol of Black Friday — about three for every man, woman and child in the U. S. — and there is no room for error, not with billions of dollars of business in the air.
The job has become more demanding as online storefronts promise near- instant gratification through perks such as free shipping or same- day delivery, and as package- tracking shoppers have grown more acutely aware of — and annoyed by — how long their Blu- ray has been sitting in Buffalo.
“Someone awaiting a package in Bangkok doesn’t care if it snowed in Louisville, Kentucky,” said Randy Baker, a senior meteorologist for UPS Airlines. “They want their stuff.”
Some meteorologists help big retailers, including Wal- Mart and Home Depot, prepare for emergencies and know what to stock. But weather- watcher work can prove far more complex, with forecasters helping reroute jets around rough weather; mobilizing de- icing and refuelling crews; and preparing pilots for the worst of fog, frost and potentially milliondollar delays.
The largest shipping firms’ top meteorologists are a motley crew of Air Force veterans, experienced forecasters and part- time storm chasers, many of them weather nerds who can trace their love of sky- watching back to a seminal childhood blizzard, hurricane or act of God.
This winter could be their biggest test yet. The National Retail Federation expects that about 45 per cent of Americans will do their holiday shopping online, and Forrester Research analysts predict that online sales will rise about 13 per cent this season, to $ 89 billion.
The shipping industry can barely afford a repeat of last winter’s misery. As forecasters fought to dodge the polar vortex and a battery of icy storms, shipping crews were over- run by a binge of last- minute Christmas orders. UPS was overwhelmed so thoroughly that it missed crucial Christmas deliveries, and FedEx slashed $ 125 million from its expected profits, a hit that chief financial officer Alan Graf called “beyond the realm of believable.”
Amid this tension, shipping meteorologists’ work can take on an air of near- military momentousness, including among the 15 expert weather- watchers at FedEx’s global command complex. On the chaotic travel day before Thanksgiving, meteorologists there flit-
Someone awaiting a package in Bangkok doesn’t care if it snowed in Louisville, Kentucky. They want their stuff.
ted among four monitors’ worth of satellite, radar and weather-model data, prepping for questions about when, for instance, rain would change to snow at the Newark airport.
But if this amounted to an office- wide adrenalin rush, it was a quiet one, they said, evoking less a military nerve centre than the HR department of a Midwestern insurance agency.
“There’s not much talk,” FedEx meteorology manager Kory Gempler said. “But inside we’re all a little bit revved up.”
Weather- watching has long been a key battleground for the international shipping elite: UPS launched its meteorology department 20 years ago after a surprise blizzard crippled the firm’s central air hub in Louisville. The teams nowadays work on 24- hour schedules, befitting the cargo world’s endless pace. One or more of UPS’s 237 cargo jets is flying at all times, and the company charters even more aircraft during winter to help with an average of 1,955 cargo flights a day.
Delivery data from logistics firm ShipMatrix shows that FedEx and UPS are off to a strong start, and the firm expects the carriers to have an on- time delivery rate of 95 per cent or better on Christmas Eve.
But the world’s increasingly complex shipping network has made global transit a game of brutal math: As with highway traffic, any small delay can cause ripples down the chain. Every minute of weather delays can cost hundreds of dollars more in spent fuel, service failures and stranded crews; spread across a fleet making thousands of flights a year, the cost can tally into the millions.
“Cancelling flights is not an option,” Baker of UPS said.
When forecasts aren’t enough, the top shipping firms often turn to desperate measures. FedEx dispatches special “sweep flight” jets to amble aimlessly across the skies so that, in case of emergency, they can swoop down to intercept and deliver stranded packages.
UPS runs a similar “hot spare” program, with more than a dozen standby jets and crews stationed across the United States, Asia and Europe, ready to take off within 30 minutes of a call for help. The program “rescues” more than one million packages a year, said one UPS spokesman, who called it “an expensive but vital insurance policy.”