(John Ordover) wrote

The time it takes to go from one airport to another is the least part
of the time it takes Fedex to deliver a package. You could reduce the
travel time from CA to NYC to zero and not make a significant impact
on the delivery time, which is depending on pick up, sorting, delivery
to the airport, sorting at the destination and then physical delivery.

This is all getting very iffy, but what would the market pay for
basically instantaneous package delivery? Say you could fax/matter-
transmit/e-mail the sort of boxes Fedex hauls by airplane, with
few-second delays between hitting the "send" button and the box
appearing at the addressee's door or on the loading dock.

What premium would various customers pay for that service over
sending it by fast-as-possible current-day Fedex? Organ transplants
come to mind as a possibility for which large premiums would be paid.
Others?

Presumably the added value of sub-orbital delivery, other stuff aside,
would fall between the airplane and the instantaneous cases.