Just changed to 'Prepared for Shipment'
Anybody knows if Fedex in China is operating on Saturdays?
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Has your MBP shipped yet?
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Just changed to 'Prepared for Shipment'
Anybody knows if Fedex in China is operating on Saturdays?
psychos, first of all thank you for the service you're providing. Second, do you have any intention of keeping track of the flights once your MBP has been delivered? I ordered my MBP yesterday and I'm expecting it will go "Prepared for shipment" tomorrow or Sunday and then get shipped Monday or Tuesday. It sure would be nice if you kept providing FedEx flight info until then.
I'm stuck at home at the moment, so I'm just bored and kinda enjoy dissecting this type of data...so it's no trouble.
I don't plan on keeping track of anything once my MBP arrives, but I've hopefully provided enough info that you can track things yourself! In the next few days, we should have a better idea of how long "Prepared for Shipment" and "Picked Up" relate to actual departure from Shanghai, and whether stuff is routing via Memphis or not...
You can use FlightAware to look this stuff up fairly easily. FedEx has a hub list available; the flights I could find out of Anchorage are to MEM, IND, EWR, and OAK. So if you're near one of those, you're all set, and if not you can use the Flight Finder to try looking up routes from the hubs to whatever major city is nearest you. (Keep in mind that flight schedules quite often vary over weekends vs weekdays, especially for cargo carriers. Lots of routes have Mon/Tue - Fri/Sat regular service on one flight, but a different flight or flights on the weekends... And some just don't operate on weekends.)
Of course, your stuff will be on a truck at some point. If you're not expedited, it could be further than if you are, and your package might not necessarily be flown into where you might expect it to be either way.
Please see this post, which explains FedEx flights out of Shanghai. (And perusing some of the other older posts may be of help in understanding how these things seem to be shipping out.)
...but in short, there's one more flight before Monday, in about 9.5 hours. So your package might make it onto that. I'm getting less hopeful though, as I've been "Prepared for Shipment" since about 3PM EDT; I'd hoped it'd have been picked up and had a tracking number to me by now. Still some hours to go, though!
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FDX86
This flight might contain shipments for CA orders. Hopefully.
This flight might contain shipments for CA orders. Hopefully.
I think i read someone said none of the 17" Custom machines had been built yet. Has ANYONE who ordered one seen their status progress past not shipped yet? Seems like all reports have been on 15" machines.
my 17" i7 CTO with 500gb 7200 drive changed to "prepared" this morning...but has stayed that way all day.
Placed my order in the afternoon on 3/14
Why can't you just track it? What is the point of looking up all of that info? My tracking says it will be here on Tuesday. I would assume that Fedex has software is far more accurate than you could possibly calculate by hand. What am I missing? It gives you an exact date and time (by 10:30am).
I think i read someone said none of the 17" Custom machines had been built yet. Has ANYONE who ordered one seen their status progress past not shipped yet? Seems like all reports have been on 15" machines.
Yep, here's at least one: Post 647
And Stangs55 ordered 1 day before me so I'm hoping my changes status to "Prepared for Shipment" tomorrow.
I ordered mine Tuesday morning and it hasn't shipped yet. I'd be even more annoyed if yours shipped before mineI'm kind of annoyed. I ordered a 15" CTO MPB Wendesday night and I paid the extra $ for expidited shipping. It still hasn't changed from "Not yet shipped"
Think of it as a game.
Point of looking up all the info is for fun...if you have a departure scan saying it left point X, and you can make an educated guess at what flight it's on, you can track exactly where your laptop is! If you don't care, then just use fedex.com! It's also potentially useful for people whose machines haven't shipped yet.(And it's not that FedEx's software is more accurate, it's that it has rules programmed into it that we don't know about, many of them to do things like make sure 2 day shipments take 2 days, and route them based on load, even if they could be easily overnighted so people don't just ship 2 day. I just personally find this particular instance interesting, since lots of people are providing info, and cross-referencing that against actual flights provides some insight into the internal workings of FedEx's aforementioned routing system. Kinda like a complicated puzzle involving MacBook Pros, planes, and some guesswork!)
For example, I found it kinda fun figuring out that the first shipments were almost certainly on the PVG-ANC flight...and have folks post arrival scans at Anchorage a bunch of hours later at the expected time confirming it!
Well, the Shanghai to Memphis flight landed over 30 minutes ago and still no update on my tracking info, so it doesn't look like CTO's went direct to Memphis.
On a side note, I did find a press release FedEx did about their facility in Shanghai -- it's right at the airport and is the largest of it's kind in China. So "leaving the origin facility" would hopefully mean "on a plane" given that it's part of the airport, but who knows.
At this point, it's been 36 hours since it "left the origin" and almost 7 hours "in transit". No clue where it is! I'll check again in the morning and update.
On a side note, I did find a press release FedEx did about their facility in Shanghai -- it's right at the airport and is the largest of it's kind in China. So "leaving the origin facility" would hopefully mean "on a plane" given that it's part of the airport, but who knows.
At this point, it's been 36 hours since it "left the origin" and almost 7 hours "in transit". No clue where it is! I'll check again in the morning and update.
Thanks for the info. One question if you don't mind. FedEx has a hub in Anchorage (PANC) and I found from the list you linked to that they have one in Ft. Worth at Alliance Airport (KAFW). Unfortunately FlightFinder shows no flights from PANC to KAFW. It also shows no flights from KMEM to KAFW (which is very surprising indeed). The only flights I could find from a FedEx hub into Ft. Worth Alliance were two flights from KOAK, one on Friday and one on Saturday.
Am I missing something? I did pay for expedited shipping so I would expect a flight into Ft. Worth since I live in a suburb of Dallas (45 miles from Alliance Airport).
OK, I think I found my problem. FedEx also runs flights into DFW Airport from Memphis on Sun, Mon, Wed, Thr, Fri, and Sat.
I know it's speculation on your part, but from what you've seen of the flights do you think it's likely that shipments from the factory would go PVG -> ANC -> MEM -> DFW?
Interesting. I'm still thinking that the "origin facility" is a FedEx facility near or attached to wherever the Apple factory is, though...given the times of scans for leaving the origin and "in transit", that makes more sense to me. Your "in transit" time might be it hitting that facility at the airport. Question is, where the hell is the Apple factory?
Take a look at the AFW departure history, may need to scroll a bit to find the FDX flights...from the cities served, it seems like AFW is used as a regional domestic hub mainly, to serve stuff within the southwest and south-central US. I think they do use DFW as the endpoint for local deliveries; it has a bunch of MEM and IND flights, and nothing past that for FedEx other than one ELP flight. I think your guess at the PVG-ANC-MEM-DFW routing is probably right, though they may route through IND instead of MEM. But who knows, we have yet to see whether these things are getting purposefully delayed as sometimes happens to make things arrive on the "correct" day, in which case you might see something like ANC-IND-MEM-DFW with it sitting around at IND and MEM to delay for a day. Or just delaying on the way at one of those.
Wow, really? Well my order is being "Prepared for Shipment" too. Hopefully, it will make that flight and I will have it by next Wednesday.
One note on possible Saturday delivery.. I signed up for the "My FedEx", which gives you a more detailed view of the tracking info (not more up-to-date or informative, just more info about the package and the service).. I noticed in the "Special Handling" it says "Deliver Weekday". Not like I have any chance of it arriving today anyways given my latest status.
Also, on the FedEx website where it describes the International Priority Direct Distribution, it says they have "2 business days" to deliver after the day they get the package. Doesn't say Saturday delivery isn't available, but seems more Mon-Fri from their verbiage.
Not like I have any chance of it arriving today anyways given my latest status.Also, on the FedEx website where it describes the International Priority Direct Distribution, it says they have "2 business days" to deliver after the day they get the package. Doesn't say Saturday delivery isn't available, but seems more Mon-Fri from their verbiage.
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One note on possible Saturday delivery.. I signed up for the "My FedEx", which gives you a more detailed view of the tracking info (not more up-to-date or informative, just more info about the package and the service).. I noticed in the "Special Handling" it says "Deliver Weekday".
Also, on the FedEx website where it describes the International Priority Direct Distribution, it says they have "2 business days" to deliver after the day they get the package. Doesn't say Saturday delivery isn't available, but seems more Mon-Fri from their verbiage.
"Packaging: Your Packaging"... wait a second, was I supposed to send Apple a box for them to ship me my MacBook Pro in?
The "2 business days" thing has a lot of wiggle room depending on where stuff is going. With packages originating out of China in the early morning US time, they can certainly get those over to the US the next day. Doesn't work quite as well, going by calendar days, in the other direction. Flight connections are optimized for stuff like China->US too.
Saturday delivery is definitely available; I think it depends more on the destination country which may explain the more general verbiage you saw. I was able to get quotes from FedEx's website for a Friday shipment from China to the US, with Saturday delivery instead of Monday available for an extra fee. And the flights are definitely timed such that next-day works in general from China; getting quotes for weekdays, the "International Priority" was next day. Thus being able to use it for Saturday delivery on a Friday package with the apparent ~$10 fee for such (when quoted in CNY and converted to USD...)
Edit: Of course, you might be right for the "Direct Distribution" stuff, which I understand as Apple shipping large pallets up to Anchorage as individual bulk items, and having them broken up there and routed to their destinations. That might also explain why everything goes through Anchorage, if such proves to be the case, with the Memphis flights also available. (It's also actually cheaper to fly stuff PVG-ANC-MEM than PVG-MEM, I'm fairly certain; the extra 2.5% distance should be more than offset by the fact that the plane doesn't have to carry the extra fuel to get to MEM all the way from China.) So, yeah, even though I could get quotes on retail shipments with Saturday delivery (and next day delivery in general), it may just not be offered/supported for commercial stuff like above. Though the "Deliver Weekday" notation is interesting, as it suggests that they explicitly NOT deliver on Saturdays.
Yep, you're right about AFW being the source for regional flights. You're also right, this flight tracking IS a fun game.
After looking at the flight tracker info it appears that a likely scenario for me if, and it's a big if, my order goes "Prepared for shipment" by Sunday is it will be on flight FDX90 departing Shanghai at 10:55 PM local time on Monday. FDX90 arrives in Memphis at 12:15 AM local time on Tuesday. Then it's on to FDX531 departing Memphis at 4:29 PM on Tuesday and arriving to DFW at 5:33 PM Tuesday. With luck it'll make it through sorting and be on a truck for delivery on Wednesday.
Obviously I'm interested in any shipments people here have that went from Shanghai to Memphis rather than Shanghai to Anchorage so please post your tracking info for the good of the community.
Just got my shipment notification from Apple, with a tracking number. Yay! Unfortunately, FedEx says I missed their cutoff. Boo!
Apr 17, 2010 12:57 PM Left FedEx origin facility SHANGHAI CN
Apr 17, 2010 12:43 PM Picked up SHANGHAI CN Package received after FedEx cutoff
Apr 17, 2010 12:43 PM Left FedEx origin facility SHANGHAI CN
Apr 16, 2010 10:42 PM Shipment information sent to FedEx
Estimated delivery is Apr 21. Seems odd that a package picked up at 12:43PM for a 9PM flight missed the cutoff! The cutoff might be based on volume, customs clearance requirements, Apple's factory being much further from the airport than I've been assuming, and definitely other things that I don't know about.
Perhaps I'll get lucky and it will indeed go out PVG-ANC in 7 hours. Otherwise, I guess it's going to sit in Shanghai until Monday or Tuesday... Guess I'll find out in the morning! Not a huge difference between receiving it on Wed instead of Tue, at this point I'm more curious as to when it'll leave Shanghai and which way.
Apr 17, 2010 12:57 PM Left FedEx origin facility SHANGHAI CN
Apr 17, 2010 12:43 PM Picked up SHANGHAI CN Package received after FedEx cutoff
Apr 17, 2010 12:43 PM Left FedEx origin facility SHANGHAI CN
Apr 16, 2010 10:42 PM Shipment information sent to FedEx
Estimated delivery is Apr 21. Seems odd that a package picked up at 12:43PM for a 9PM flight missed the cutoff! The cutoff might be based on volume, customs clearance requirements, Apple's factory being much further from the airport than I've been assuming, and definitely other things that I don't know about.
Perhaps I'll get lucky and it will indeed go out PVG-ANC in 7 hours. Otherwise, I guess it's going to sit in Shanghai until Monday or Tuesday... Guess I'll find out in the morning! Not a huge difference between receiving it on Wed instead of Tue, at this point I'm more curious as to when it'll leave Shanghai and which way.
And if it's true that everything goes through Anchorage then as near as I can tell this is the route my MBP will take to get to me:
FDX28 departing Shanghai 8:47 PM Tuesday, arriving Anchorage 12:20 PM Tuesday (it crosses the international date line and so picks up a day)
FDX28 departing Anchorage 4:15 PM Tuesday, arriving Memphis 1:15 AM Wednesday
FDX531 departing Memphis 4:23 PM Wednesday, arriving DFW 5:30 PM Wednesday
With a little luck it gets put on a truck for delivery on Thursday morning.
Not a huge difference between receiving it on Wed instead of Tue, at this point I'm more curious as to when it'll leave Shanghai and which way.
And at this point you've got me curious as to when it leaves Shanghai and which route it takes. I'm sure it goes without saying but please keep us posted.
I ordered my MacBook Pro 13" immediately after it was announced in Switzerland but was amazed to find the estimated arrival date of 5 May! So I've canceled the order and will try my luck in the local Apple Stores, which claim they'll be receiving their models sometime next week. Do you suppose the Apple retailers have priority?