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The Night Rush

November 22, 1999

One of the busiest operations going on around the world at night is the air cargo industry. This industry has grown tremendously since the 1970's with the formation of a company devoted expressly to cargo transportation. The company I am referring to is FedEx, which began operations in 1973 in Memphis, TN. From this time on, most transportation companies followed suit and began their own air cargo operation or soon fell by the wayside watching this industry boom with no end in sight.

The Night Haulers
Along with FedEx came UPS, Airborne Express, and many other players to the air cargo industry. Most airlines had been carrying cargo for years before, but none had gone expressly to cargo until FedEx. This new industry started out slowly, but as domestic and international businesses grew so did the demand for overnight package and document delivery. With this growth came the technology to handle it.

FedEx and UPS, for example, have huge computer systems and tracking software designed to streamline the shipping system. This first came with the building of state of the art sorting facilities and constant upgrading of aircraft. When I say state of the art facilities, I mean state of the art facilities. FedEx, for example, has a control room, which looks like something that NASA uses to monitor the space shuttle. It probably is more sophisticated than NASA's with the shear volume that it has to handle (as well as how the government procurement system works). FedEx pushes around 3.1 million packages daily and UPS ships 12.1 million packages with 1.8 million being air delivery. The volume of these cargo haulers is phenomenal and the system has to work. This puts a very competitive edge on the industry and keeps pushing these companies to strive for exceptional and expeditious operations. This no error operation has several volatile factors to deal with, but the main one is in the air.

Into the Dark Skies
The night cargo industry works somewhat like the airline hub and spoke system. Only there are mainly one or two hubs for cargo as opposed to many for passenger travel. The aircraft leave for their out stations early in the afternoon, if they are not already there, and get ready for the inflow of packages from the public. The aircraft are loaded and the aircraft get ready to head out to their hub stations to arrive at a prearranged time. This is usually about the same time for most of the aircraft. This inbound flow of aircraft is what air traffic controllers call the inbound rush. I think the name came from several things, but mainly how they rush in and the head rush controllers get when trying to line them up and get them in to land.

The FedEx rush begins from the east around 10:15 PM Central time and lasts until about 11:30pm CST. These are mainly aircraft from the East Coast and in between. The west inbound push begins around 12:00 am CST and lasts until 1:30 am CST. This is mainly for the operation of the airport. It cannot handle all the aircraft at once. If you look at the time, you're talking about landing hundreds of aircraft within just over an hour. Not to mention the other aircraft coming in around that time. After the aircraft are unloaded and the packages are sorted, the aircraft are reloaded and they head back out to their outstations usually around 2:30 am CST. This is called the outbound push and they flog out like a bunch of geese heading in every direction. This rush is a little easier than the inbound because of how the aircraft spread out and the distance between them increases rather than decreases to minimums on the inbound rush. This whole scenario is played every night with the exception of weekends and has one very important player.

The Unknown Operations Director
This important player in the cargo night hauler industry is the air traffic controller. This operations director has to manage huge amounts of inbound and outbound traffic to the cargo company's hub facilities. Without the controllers safely and expeditiously lining up the aircraft and getting them down to the runway in an orderly fashion, these large companies would have a hard time making ends meet.

Most folks think air traffic control is mainly at the airport. That is understandable because the most visible part of aviation is at the airport. The lining up of the aircraft inbound to the airport begins hundreds of miles out. The east inbound push for FedEx begins almost 300 miles east of Memphis, TN. With 4 lines of Jets being brought together and combined into one stream of aircraft just north of Nashville, TN. While this seems simple, it is worked by one controller weaving huge jet aircraft together that are cruising at about Mach .80 to Mach .85 (with Mach 1.00 being the speed of sound) between the altitudes of 28,000 feet to 43,000feet. After the aircraft are lined up they are descended down and spaced by more controllers and then they enter Memphis Approach's airspace. These approach controllers line them up for the runways in order for them to land.

It's not just in the air that the problem arises. The ground control situation is like a fast moving ballet. Getting the aircraft to the ramp is one of the most complicated jobs for controllers at Memphis International Airport. Large numbers of aircraft moving about an airport on the ground is very tricky and dangerous. One wrong turn on an airport can mean disaster. While normal operations are interesting, factor in the dark and bad weather and you have a very dangerous and stressful environment for both the controller and the pilots.

Conclusion
The air traffic controller is one of the most misunderstood occupations in the World. Lots of people think controllers have light sticks and help the aircraft park on the ramp. While others know more about it, they still do not understand the huge responsibility that these men and women take on every day. The night rush is but one of the many stressful situations that controllers work every night. While big companies keep expanding their cargo operations and the night cargo industry keeps growing, so will the demand on controllers to handle the large number of aircraft flying in the- NIGHT RUSH.

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