Through his research he determined that reliability and speed had never been strengths of cargo services, as they were typically sent on passenger planes on daytime flights, making next day deliver nearly impossible. Also, shipment outside of large cities required many transfers or was simply not available (Kinney, 47). Smith decided that Federal Express could streamline operations by shipping all packages to a central point for sorting and then reloading onto planes. After this was accomplished, the packages would then be flown to their destination. Smith discovered this style of shipping by observing how the banking industry collected canceled checks at sorting locations and then distributed them to individual banks (Kinney, 54). In 1971, Fred Smith incorporated Federal Express and went in search of investors. He was just 27 years old. Many of the people he approached with his new idea thought his plan was impossible and questioned the need for this type of service. Smith ended up putting up $4 million of his own money and, with the aid of investors, who eventually added an additional $80 million, began Federal Express (Kinney, 55). In the beginning, FedEx had twelve cities in the East and Midwest as delivery sites, and a small sales staff, who labored to establish accounts in those places. A small fleet of Dassault Falcons awaited the packages, with couriers ready to pick up and deliver them in cars and vans. In 1973, Fed Ex had grown to include 389 employees, 25 U.S. cities, and their fleet had grown to 14 Falcons. Today, FedEx's headquarters are world wide, with locations in Tennessee, Asia, Canada, Brussels, Belgium, and Latin America. These headquarters employ more than 145,000 people worldwide, and serve 210 countries with the aid of 625 aircraft flying in and out of 366 airports. However, none of this would be possible without the aid of the approximate 1,400 world service centers and over 2,400 FedEx ship sites around the globe (FedEx Service Guide, 3-7).