Amazon buys eleven of its own planes. Do transport service providers like UPS & Co. or more traditional airlines have to tremble?
Online shop, film and music streaming, cloud services – the Amazon group has many pillars. Now it is growing wings too. For the first time, its own cargo airline, Amazon Air, is buying planes instead of leasing them.
Amazon treats itself to eleven used Boeing models of the type 767-300. According to the notification, the sellers of the planes are the airlines Westjet and Delta. Amazon did not provide any information on the purchase price. If the planes were new, they would cost around two billion dollars, according to reports.
The occassion planes are designed for passenger transport. Therefore, Amazon first has to convert them for parcel transport. By next year at the latest, the planes are to add the planes to the existing fleet of around 80 leased aircraft – all Boeing's of the 767 and 737 types.
With over 90 aircraft, Amazon is already number four among the transport giants. Only Fedex with 400, UPS with 276 and DHL with around 260 planes have a larger fleet. This year Amazon also plans to open a new logistics facility at the Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Airport valued at 1.5 billion dollars, which will accommodate all aircraft in the fleet (video below).
Can I fly with the Amazon airline soon?
“No, definitely not,” says aviation expert and ZKB analyst Michael Winkler. There will be no classic airline from Amazon. Winkler explains: “The aviation business is too expensive and insecure for Amazon. This was shown by the corona crisis and the volcanic eruption in Iceland 11 years ago, which blocked the entire European airspace.”
Will I be able to send parcels via Amazon soon?
Amazon is unlikely to become a transport company à la Fedex and UPS, as Winkler explains. However, should Amazon not be able to use its cargo planes for its own use, it is conceivable that the company will offer the free space to other companies. Amazon is trying out a lot of new things like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Winkler said. The company founded the cloud service 15 years ago because it couldn't use the data centers to capacity. Meanwhile, AWS brings in the majority of the group profit.
Will I get the parcels faster now?
European customers will probably not be able to take advantage of Amazon's new planes. Winkler suspects that they are mainly used in the USA. “Europe is densely populated compared to the US. In the US, Amazon can deliver faster with its own air fleet and is more flexible, says e-commerce professor Ralf Wölfle from the University of Applied Sciences in Northwestern Switzerland.” Even with changes in demand such as the Corona crisis Being able to deliver is important in order to stand out from the competition, “says Wölfle.
Why is Amazon buying its own aircraft and not leasing them as before?
The expert suspects that Amazon could buy the planes cheaply. “The planes just stand around in the crisis and cost money that the airlines urgently need,” said Winkler.
Why does Amazon keep buying the same type of plane?
Like most of Amazon's fleet, the eleven new planes are Boeing 767s. In addition, the group has several 737 models. Both are no longer in production. The company could probably afford brand new planes. But expert Winkler explains: “Amazon's cargo planes are less in the air than those of scheduled airlines. Therefore, it is not worthwhile for Amazon to buy new, expensive and more cost-effective aircraft.
