What is common between FedEx, India Post and Nagpur?
The image says Inland night air mail of 1949 and side by side is FedEx logo, so you must be thinking FedEx provided first night mail service to India Post in India in 1949? No!
77th issue of The Chai and Charts Chronicles
Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx a pioneer who helped create the overnight delivery industry, changing the way businesses and consumers get the goods they purchased, died on 22nd June 2025. FedEx Corp earlier called Federal Express, which commenced operations in 1971, is one of the world's largest express transportation companies, providing fast and reliable delivery to more than 220 countries and territories around the world.
Fred Smith studied economics at Yale University in 1965, where he outlined a “revolutionary idea” for an overnight delivery service to deliver time-sensitive shipments, in a college term paper. The concept later evolved into the core business model of Federal Express. Fred Smith famously received only an average grade on the paper. But, FedEx went on to pioneer the concept known as hub-and-spoke distribution, and that is now a Industry standard across Supply chain Industry.
But much before 1971, the same concept was in use in India since 1949!
Hub and Spoke
The hub and spoke model is a network configuration where a central hub connects to multiple peripheral locations called spokes. The hub acts as a central point for consolidation, distribution, or coordination, while the spokes are the endpoints or destinations. The central point in the network, often a large facility like a warehouse, airport, or central office. Smaller, peripheral locations or endpoints connected to the hub. These could be retail stores, regional airports, or individual users.
Today, several Industries apart from logistics uses this concept of Hub and Spoke from Airlines to Cloud computing to Healthcare services as the approach leads to streamlined processes, optimized resource allocation, cost reduction and scalability
Cost Reduction:
Consolidating shipments, flights, or other activities at the hub can reduce transportation costs and improve operational efficiency.
Scalability:
The hub and spoke model allows businesses to easily scale their operations by adding or modifying spokes as needed
Nagpur
Nagpur is a large city in the state of Maharashtra, India. Geographically it is more or less the centre point of India and equidistant from the 4 major metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. This makes it a suitable location to be a Hub for the logistics and Supply chain Industry in India. In the recent past, Government of India has announced several projects to take advantage of the Geographical location of Nagpur and develop it into a Multi modal transport Hub:
Multi-Modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN) project started in 2019- This project aims to leverage Nagpur's central location to create a major cargo hub with integrated Air, road and rail connectivity
Multi Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) Nagpur, developed by National Highway Logistics Management Limited (NHLML), is enhancing freight movement through various modes, commenced operations in March 2025
Night Airmail service - Department of Posts, India
Indian Airlines used to operate Dakota/Avro aircrafts in the 50s and 60s for passenger transport. They were small aircraft which could transport upto 50 passengers. There were no Courier services or any Speedy mail services and India’s road network was also relatively small. Hence speedy delivery of mail in India was a big challenge in newly Independent India. Dept of posts and Telegraphs, Govt. of India (P&T) started Night Air Mail service in 1949 to provide quick and reliable overnight delivery service for mail. This service was started in 4 metro cities of Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai (Madras) located in North, East, West and South of India. The promise was next day delivery, to and from these 4 cities. This was achieved by the partnership with Indian Airlines, taking advantage of the Nagpur’s central location from these 4 cities. Every night, Aircraft would depart at similar time, from these 4 cities, carrying mails/parcels from that city destined for the other 3 cities. All the 4 flights would land at Nagpur, where the mails and parcels were sorted for each city (See time table)
The aircraft would then fly back with mails/parcels for the city from the other 3 cities. Nagpur was the “sorting airport” (the term was coined much later) and Department of Posts was able to deliver mails next day in the 4 cities. The Night Air Mail Service, continued until October 1973, when the Indian Airlines Corporation decided to discontinue the service, because of the low rates paid by the P & T Department!
Fred Smith as a student of Yale University, in 1965, came to India, to study the Night Air Mail service and wrote the college paper on the same. He later on went to launch FedEx with the same concept. To Fred Smith’s credit, through FedEx, he demonstrated scalability of the model, which later on became well known as Hub and Spoke. But Department of Posts in India was using the concept 16 years before Fred Smith wrote his college paper and 22 years before Fred Smith “pioneered Hub and Spoke” model at FedEx.
On a parting note: In 1984, Voltas a cooling appliance company, started a large refrigerator manufacturing facility at Warora, near Nagpur (There were no other Industries then anywhere close by for 80-100kms), primarily because of the central geographical location from the 4 major consumption centres and thus be able to to transport all over India at low costs. I was part of Voltas Refrigerator Business from 1986 to 1991, so I know vouch for this!
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