Jet Delivery

Jet Delivery Corporation is a leading same-day delivery and logistics company based in La Verne, CA.

History

Jet Delivery was founded on October 15, 1950, and then incorporated on April 7, 1953. Founder, James F. Zahner, raised the money he needed to start the company by selling a used Maytag washing machine earlier that fall. At the time, Jet Delivery resided on the corner of Venice Blvd. and Main St in Los Angeles, CA and operated a total of four vehicles - a 1932 Ford Model B, a 1934 Ford Sedan, an Indian motorcycle with a sidecar and a Cushman motorcycle.

Though the 1973 oil crisis was an economic strain for the United States, it provided Jet Delivery with a means to breakaway from other local couriers. This came through two channels. The first was the installation of three 10,000 gallon gas tanks at the E. 10th St. address. Since Jet Delivery was the only local courier that could provide their drivers with fuel anytime, they were practically unaffected by gas rationing in the mid-1970s. This allowed Jet Delivery’s drivers to drive for longer intervals, and farther distances than other competing companies’ drivers. The other channel was the conversion of gasoline powered trucks to propane powered trucks. The advantage of converting stake-bed and bobtail trucks to propane fuel was the abundance of propane in relation to gasoline. Since the heaver trucks were not very fuel efficient, it made it convenient for drivers to fuel their vehicles with propane anywhere and anytime without having to worry about the gas ration.

Prior to the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, Jet Delivery had primarily been labeled a local, same-day shipper. However, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 into law on July 1, 1980, the deregulation of the routes and geographic regions motor carriers could serve gave Jet Delivery considerable new opportunities. Instead of only serving local businesses, Jet Delivery could now serve businesses on a national level. Thus, Jet Delivery became a nationwide, same-day shipper.

Two years after the trucking industry had been deregulated, a new vice president was appointed. After serving as a driver for one year, and then as a dispatcher for five years, Michael Barbata became vice president and company shareholder on August 25, 1982. Ten years later, on October 1, 1992, Jet Delivery purchased Crest Orbit Delivery Service, a Los Angeles based courier company established in 1946. The merger brought together two of Los Angeles’ oldest corporations and made Jet Delivery one of the largest same-day delivery companies in the Los Angeles Basin.

After the death of James F. Zahner in 1999, Vice President Michael Barbata bought Jet Delivery and became CEO. Shortly thereafter, the sales force started actively targeting logistics accounts, Information Technology spending was increased to 5% of the company’s revenue and partnerships were started with other United States based, same-day couriers. Those partnerships, coupled with the bigger Information Technology budget, eventually paved the way for Jet Delivery to efficiently pick up almost any package in the United States, and then deliver it to any domestic location in the same day.

In the spring of 2004, Jet Delivery outgrew the E. 10th St. Location in Los Angeles, CA and moved its headquarters to a 34,000 sq ft facility in La Verne, CA (the current location). The increased facility size allowed Jet Delivery to enter the warehousing market. At the same time, Jet Delivery also opened an office in the San Francisco Bay Area, which also has over 12,000 sq ft of warehouse space. Since 2005, Jet Delivery has averaged a 10% revenue increase each year.

Offices

La Verne, CA

Jet Delivery is headquartered in La Verne, CA. The facility is 34,000 sq ft in size and has multiple loading docks for trucks with trailers up to 53’ in length. All major systems and applications are run from this facility.

Hayward, CA

The Hayward, CA facility is 12,000 sq ft in size and has multiple loading docks for trucks with trailers up to 53’ in length. All data from the La Verne, CA office is continuously backed up to this location via VPN.

Agent Network

Jet Delivery started partnerships with approximately 700 other United States based, same-day courier companies in early 2001. This was done for several reasons. The first being that since Jet Delivery is southern California based, partnering with other domestic same-day couriers allowed Jet Delivery to service their local customers’ who needed anything picked up, and dropped off outside of southern California. These partnerships also allowed Jet Delivery to act as a brokerage house. That is, once the partnerships were established, Jet Delivery could essentially ship anything, to anywhere in the United States using only the agent network and flight data.

Technology

SmartShip

SmartShip is an algorithm developed in 2000, which returns both the cost and arrival time of any shipment. SmartShip uses the shipment’s origin and destination zip codes, along with various other parameters specific to the shipment (size, weight, hazardous, etc...), the Vincenty formula to find the geodesic between the two points and then returns travel time estimates along with a price.

SmartFlight

SmartFlight was developed in 2001, one year after SmartShip was released. The two algorithms are similar; however, the difference is that while SmartShip focuses on ground shipments, SmartFlight focuses on shipments traveling by air. In most cases when shipments travel by air, commercial flights will suffice; SmartFlight searches a database of all United States domestic flights and returns the top options for shipping any specific package. Once a flight is chosen, the dispatcher can immediately start coordinating with agents from the agent network to complete the shipment.

Mobile Website

Jet Delivery launched its mobile website, mobil.jetdelivery.com, in 2006. The site was built using Wireless Markup Language (WML) and Visual Basic Script (VBScript). It fully supports both quoting and tracking from any wireless phone or PDA that has a WAP browser.

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