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Video answers: Overnight shipping

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

  1. It’s an enormous company with more planes than Etihad, Emirates and Qatar Airways combined, approximately 650 planes serving 400 destinations.
  2. The superhub is in Memphis and is located there because it’s close to the mean population centre of the US.
  3. Hundreds of flights arrive there and are unloaded between 10pm and 1am. Then the packages are sorted for planes to begin taking off again between 2am and 4am.
  4. To operate to smaller destinations, smaller ATR and Cessna planes are used, which connect to the bigger hubs.
  5. No, not every package is sent through the superhub, secondary hubs help reduce the inefficiency of sending everything through the superhub.
  6. It’s very important because it’s directly between FedEx’s hubs in Memphis and Osaka, Japan and it’s heavily used as a location to refuel, swap crews and sort packages.
  7. They buy these aircraft because they’re cheap and often don’t fly for many hours during the day, which would lose the company money if they had more expensive planes.
  8. In general, it’s not the same for commercial airlines, which generally buy more expensive planes and use them for as many hours per day as possible. However, some airlines buy cheaper planes and can use them less while still making a profit.

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Video: Overnight shipping

This week’s video describes how overnight shipping works. Watch to find out how!

Try to answer the following questions about the video and come back on Monday for the answers.

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

  1. How big is FedEx?
  2. Where is FedEx’s superhub and why is it located there?
  3. How does the superhub operate?
  4. How does FedEx operate to smaller destinations?
  5. Is every package sent through the superhub?
  6. Why is Anchorage so important to FedEx?
  7. Why do FedEx and other shippers buy old aircraft?
  8. Is this the same for commercial airlines?

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Have a great weekend!

How Overnight Shipping Works

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Audio answer: ‘Cargo smoke’

Here’s the text to the listening from yesterday.

Enjoy!!

A 777 with 246 passengers and 15 crew, was descending towards its destination when the pilots noticed a cargo smoke warning indication. Due to their proximity to their destination, they expedited the approach to the runway and landed safely. Emergency services were called out but found no fire or smoke. The airline later confirmed the cargo smoke warning to be a false alarm.

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Audio: ‘Cargo smoke’

Listen to this recording and try to write what your understand. You should try to write everything that is said.

You can listen as many times as you want.

Check below the recording for some of the difficult words and come back and check the full text from this recording tomorrow.

Suggested ICAO level: 4+

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Have a great day!

Difficult words: notice (v.), warning (n.), indication (n.), false alarm (n.)

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Cargo fire

Here’s the text to the listening from yesterday.

Enjoy!!

An MD-11 freighter, with 4 crew members on board was en route to its destination when the crew received an indication of a cargo fire. The fire suppression system was automatically activated and for safety reasons the crew decided to divert. They made a safe landing 21 minutes later and evacuated via the emergency slides. During this evacuation, one member of the crew was injured and was taken to a hospital.

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Cargo fire

Listen to this recording and try to write what your understand. You should try to write everything that is said.

You can listen as many times as you want.

Check below the recording for some of the difficult words and come back and check the full text from this recording tomorrow.

Suggested ICAO level: 4+

Follow us on twitter here or Facebook here for more great content!

Have a great day!

Difficult words: fire suppression system (n.)