FedEx Express said it was raising the fuel surcharge for its air parcel shipments to 16 percent for June 5 to July 2, and hiking its fuel fee for package shipments by ground to 4.25 percent.

The new fuel surcharge rates match those recently announced by UPS for that same period. For UPS, however, raising the air fee to 16 percent also meant dropping a longstanding policy of capping the surcharge even if fuel prices would otherwise have pushed the fee higher.

Currently, the FedEx air fuel surcharge, based on recent costs of jet fuel at the U.S. Gulf Coast region, stands at 13.5 percent. Its ground surcharge, based on average U.S. diesel prices as surveyed by the Department of Energy, is 3.75 percent.

The current UPS surcharges are 12.5 percent for packages shipped by air, and 3.75 percent for ground.

DHL, which competes with FedEx and UPS in the U.S. express package market, has not yet published its June fuel fee rates.

DHL's current surcharges are 14.5 percent for air, and 3.8 percent for ground.