FedEx
Global Air
Freight
Designing a differentiated end-to-end digital experience for international shippers in a $269 billion market dominated by manual processes and disjointed technology.
A $269 billion market still running on phone calls.
"How might we design a differentiated Global Air Freight digital end-to-end experience for small and medium-sized international shippers that makes it easy to create and manage shipments?"
Global air freight is one of the most complex and high-stakes shipping categories, used for time-sensitive goods, high-value items, and perishables moving across borders. Despite the scale of the market, the experience for shippers was fragmented: multiple websites, email chains with freight forwarders, manual documentation, and almost no real-time visibility when things went wrong.
FedEx had historically focused on a small slice of the air freight market. Project Atlas was built around a different question: what would it take to design an experience that made international air freight actually accessible, and actually better than what the industry had accepted as normal?
16 interviews. Five countries. One pattern.
Customer research began with 16 in-depth interviews with international shippers in the United States and Hong Kong, followed by a preference pulse survey of 133 respondents and concept testing with 300+ participants across five countries: the US, Hong Kong, China, Mexico, and Germany. The team spent over 10 hours in ideation and design creation before touching Figma.
The pattern that emerged across all five countries was the same: shippers were shopping rates across multiple providers through a mix of websites, installed software, and email exchanges with freight forwarders. Booking a shipment meant days of back-and-forth on documentation. And when something went wrong in transit, calling was the only way to get real information. That gap was the design opportunity.
One place to quote, book,
track, and resolve.
The research validated four priority areas: getting a quote, booking a shipment, tracking in transit, and managing billing. The design solution addressed all four in a single connected experience — multi-carrier rate comparison, a quote-to-booking flow with no handoff gaps, enhanced visibility, and billing transparency.
Designs were validated with over 300 participants across five countries, resulting in a high-fidelity clickable prototype and a leadership presentation that secured buy-in for the next phase. The work established the core experience design for what became FedEx's Global Air Freight digital platform — a foundation for a market the company was actively working to expand into.
Self-serve problem resolution replaced the phone call for the most common in-transit issues. Billing transparency surfaced surcharges before they became surprises. For the first time, a shipper could move from initial rate inquiry all the way through booking and tracking without switching platforms or picking up a phone.
The Global Air Freight experience begins with users entering their freight details — weight, dimensions, origin, and destination — before seeing a multi-carrier rate comparison.
The Global Air Freight experience begins with users entering their freight details — weight, dimensions, origin, and destination — before seeing a multi-carrier rate comparison.