For Immediate Release: August 22, 2018
Piedmont Triad – FedEx will expand its activity at PTI beginning on or about September 4, 2018 and will be adding as many as 400 new jobs. The expansion will also add a net total of eight new FedEx flights at the airport, nearly doubling existing operations. These flights will primarily consist of B757 aircraft. With few exceptions, the hub operations will be limited to four nights per week (Monday – Thursday).
All of these new flights, plus two small turboprop feeder aircraft (that replace two similar feeders that currently operate earlier in the day), will arrive late at night and depart early morning.
Specifically, these ten flights will arrive between 10:30 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. and will then depart between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. In its environmental approval for the FedEx hub, the FAA directed that these flights would operate in a “head-to-head” fashion – that is, when winds allow, aircraft will arrive from the southwest, and after the sort is completed and the planes are reloaded, the aircraft will depart in the reverse direction, back to the southwest. Wind analysis predicts that this pattern will be applicable approximately 90-95% of the time.
It is also expected that Runway 5R/23L will be the primary runway for these operations, when it is in service, but any runway may be used at the discretion of Air Traffic Control. Runway 5R/23L is currently closed for reconstruction, but the Authority has taken extra measures to accelerate the project.
The environmental analyses done for the FedEx Hub operations, and the Authority’s Part 150 Noise Compatibility Program contemplated as many as 63 flights per night operating in the head-to-head pattern. The currently planned number of ten is significantly fewer.
Finally, many of the 63 flights in earlier planning were to be operated with B727 aircraft, one of the noisiest aircraft flying at that time. FedEx has since retired all of its B727 fleet. The new flights will be operated with more modern and quieter aircraft.
For additional information regarding this exciting growth and the operations that it includes, please follow links on the Authority’s website (flyfrompti.com) for the “FedEx Expansion”.
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Contact: Kimberly Hodges, 336-665-5669, hodgesk@gsoair.org