FedEx says Monday is the busiest day of the year

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Black Friday and Cyber Monday are long gone, and now it's just the waiting game to get those purchases as FedEx readies for Monday, expected to be the busiest day in history for shipments.

"We need all hands on deck this early this year, compared to normal," said Joe Fife, senior manager for FedEx Express in North Austin. "It’s stop-and-go to be able to handle the volume that we have, and hopefully we’ll do it with a smile."

FexEx is predicting more than 19 million shipments on Monday, which is one for the record books.  In 2011, the company had about 17.2 million shipments, which made it the busiest day. 

The North Austin location at 2001 West Howard Lane does about 5,400 packages an hour.

The company is expecting to push about 280 million shipments this holiday season, and Fife said the spike has to do with the increase of online shoppers.

"This is 'game day' for us. The first 11 months is to just get ready for it -- just like the Super Bowl every year for us -- so we plan way out in advance," said Fife. "We already got plans down to engineering, already inserted projected stops, the amount of people we're going to need."

There are about 300,000 team members with FedEx working this week.

In order to make all the demands, they’ve rented more vehicles. There are 660 aircraft and 90,000 vehicles in 220 countries.

FedEx Ground said the last day to ship a package and guarantee it for Christmas is Dec. 17. The United States Postal Service listed on its website the same deadline day. And you can check out UPS online as well.

"It's in your blood. You don't want late deliveries; you want to make sure everyone is happy," said Fife. "You want a 100-percent customer satisfaction at the end of each transaction, and that's what we really try to do."