On April 17, 1973, fourteen French Dassault Falcon planes took off from Memphis International Airport and delivered 186 packages to twenty-five U.S. cities along the east coast.
     Those first flights not only marked the beginning of FedEx Express, but also the start of the express industry as a whole.
     Some forty-one years later, FedEx founder Fred Smith will speak to the air cargo community on March 11 at 09:40 at the 8th Annual IATA World Cargo Symposium in downtown Los Angeles.
     Apparently Smith has been out on the rubber chicken circuit lately having spoken in Long Beach just last week at another event.
     Whether he will deliver a different message at WCS or just rework some topics remains to be seen.
     His message lately is banging the drum for trade liberalization whilst railing against protectionist government policies.
     “Last year,” said Smith, “the top 20 world economies passed 23 percent more protectionist measures than in 2009.” Argentina alone was responsible for 168 such actions.”
     “The key to global prosperity since World War II is crystal clear.
     “An end to trade barriers would increase U.S. gross domestic product by $500 billion over several years,” he added.
     Smith called on world leaders to “redouble” their effort toward liberalizing trade.
     “The (business) problem is not cyclical,” he declared, “it’s systemic.
     “History proves that protectionism squelches competition and lowers economic growth.”

     Although he rarely makes this type of industry scene, one week in Long Beach and the nextt in Los Angeles, no doubt Smith will carry his message forward, even though he will probably not make news saying the same thing two weeks in a row.
     Stay tuned for that.
     But in a lighter and maybe even more romantic vein,
     We would like to ask Mr. Smith if he is still as keen on UAV unmanned cargo lifters as he was in 2009, when this was reported in Wired Magazine:
     “He would like to switch the (FedEx) fleet to UAVs as soon as possible, but that this will have to wait for the FAA, which has a tough road ahead in figuring out the rules of NAS integration.
     “Unmanned cargo freighters have lots of advantages for FedEx: safer, cheaper, and much larger capacity,” Wired wrote.
     “The result is that the price premium for air over sea would fall from 10x to 2x (with all the speed advantages of air).”
     Smith said that a modern 777 is already capable of being an unmanned vehicle.
     “They let the pilots touch the controls for about 20 seconds, to advance the throttles, and then the plane takes over," he said, only half-kidding.
     The truth is that the plane can take off, fly, and land itself.
     “Today pilots drive the planes on the ground, but there's no reason why the computer can't do that, too.”
     “Smith's perspective,” Wired concluded “is that humans in the cockpit make the airways more dangerous, not less.”
Geoffrey