Owing to continued pressure on South Africa’s logistics network, FedEx Sub-Saharan Africa is managing cross-border risks through detailed line-haul planning, ensuring vehicles are appropriately sized and configured for each border post to limit dwell time and improve throughput.

The company expanded its capabilities in January by increasing its flight capacity, adding three dedicated weekly cargo flights from Kenya, consequently expanding the frequency to four flights a week.

“This strategic expansion strengthens the FedEx air network across South and East Africa, enhancing capacity for African businesses and international supply chains. In addition to increased flight frequency, customers benefit from improved transit times and schedule reliability, as well as expanded capacity for a wider variety of goods,” adds FedEx Sub-Saharan Africa operations MD Nelson Teixeira.

Further, businesses will also have access to FedEx digital tools, including FedEx Ship Manager and Global Trade Manager, for customs support and shipment visibility.

Automation Initiatives

Teixeira highlights that the FedEx planning and engineering and IT teams have been driving several automation initiatives to improve throughput, reduce manual handling and ensure that the company can efficiently manage rising shipment volumes across the Southern Africa region.



“One of our key developments is the FedEx Import Tool (FiT). Through FiT, customers can make online duty and tax payments, view shipment statuses, download customs and shipment documentation, and upload any paperwork required for import processing – all without manual intervention from our teams,” Teixeira explains.

This has enabled the company to eliminate previously manual processes, such as payment verification and manual marking within in-house systems, and FiT also automatically triggers email, SMS and WhatsApp notifications, thereby ensuring that customers receive real-time prompts for payments or outstanding documentation to avoid delays.

FedEx has also enhanced its in-house systems to increase the automation of communication and documentation flows, including the automated emailing of shipment and customs clearance documents to customers immediately upon release, as well as the automatic distribution of freight certificates to selected customers, thereby consolidating freight, duty and tax amounts into a single document to simplify customer reconciliation.

Teixeira notes that the company is working on a project that involves implementing machine learning and AI tools to automate shipment manifesting and customer profile matching, which represents the first step in transforming several long, manual back-office processes into intelligent, automated workflows that could significantly improve speed and accuracy in the future.

To better support data-driven operations, the company has also developed a comprehensive Power Business Intelligence (Power BI) tool to consolidate all clearance-related reporting. This enables real-time prioritisation of shipments based on key clearance attributes, assisting FedEx in allocating resources more effectively and further accelerating throughput.

Together, these automation initiatives are modernising FedEx operational capabilities in South Africa.



FedEx is also integrating its core clearance system to onboard and meet the ingestion and processing of commercial invoice data requirements of high-volume e-commerce customer and global e-commerce platform SHEIN, in China.