Amazon Prime Air with more and more cargo planes on the way

The American tech company Amazon introduced 2015 Amazon Air, today Prime Air. An in-house freight forwarding company, which initially had “only” drones in its fleet. Since 2016, however, Prime Air has relied on conventional air traffic and is currently flying deliveries in the USA with an additional 50 Boeing 767 freighters. But that’s not enough for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: in the next two years, Amazon wants to let another 20 aircraft fly under its own logo.

But what’s behind it? Everyone ought to know that Amazon caused a hype a few years ago with its announcement that in future it would be delivering parcels by drone. However, this remained a plan that has not yet been put into practice. To additionally rely on 767 cargo planes can be justified with exactly one factor: the reduction of costs. On the one hand, the company’s own aircraft reduce costs and, as a desired side effect, Amazon no longer has to rely on third-party logistics.

Currently, the Prime Air fleet only flies in the USA, but after the introduction of Amazon Logistics in the European market, it seems likely that in the future the blue airplanes can be discovered in the sky here as well. This means new competition for the current service providers DHL Express and DHL Air. At the moment they are still handling many flights for Amazon. The WingMag team is curious to see which competitive battles will be fought in the future in cargo aviation. We stay tuned!

by Johanna Koyser