FedEx projects a busy holiday shipping season for workers like these employees, shown last summer at a Nashville FedEx facility. (Mark Humphrey/Associated Press)
FedEx said Wednesday it expects the number of shipments to increase by about 8.8 percent this year between Black Friday (Nov. 28) and Christmas Eve – a total of more than 290 million shipments.
It projects that Monday, Dec. 15, will be the busiest day with 22.6 million shipments expected. In fact, the Mondays of Dec. 1, Dec. 8 and Dec. 15 are all expected to exceed 20 million shipments.
Why does FedEx project that the middle Monday in December will be the busiest day? Consider the busiest single day for shipments over the previous seven years:
Monday, Dec. 17, 2007 11.5 million
Monday, Dec. 15, 2008 12.0 million
Monday, Dec. 14, 2009 14.2 million
Monday, Dec. 13, 2010 15.6 million
Monday, Dec. 12, 2011 17.2 million
Monday, Dec. 17, 2012 19.9 million
Monday, Dec. 16, 2013 22.0 million