Amazon has added another dozen cargo jets to its growing air fleet, which now numbers more than 80.
The e-commerce giant announced last week that it leased 12 Boeing 737 converted cargo aircraft from Air Transport Services Group (ATSG). The first of them became part of Amazon Air’s cargo operations in May, and the rest will arrive in 2021. ATSG will lease, staff, and insure the new planes.
The company cited heightened demand for consumer essential deliveries amid the COVID-19 pandemic and noted the “central” role Amazon Air has had in transporting needed supplies for Amazon workers, frontline healthcare workers, and relief organizations throughout the United States, as well as maintaining supply chain operations to current Amazon customers.
The company is currently building out its infrastructure for Amazon Air. Later this Summer, an Amazon Regional Air Hub is expected to open at Florida’s Lakeland Linder International Airport. Next year should see the opening of a hub in Southern California’s San Bernardino International Airport and the company’s $1 billion-plus central hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport — where ground first broke in May 2019. This past month, Amazon Air started operations at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Amazon began taking its air cargo operations in-house in 2014 and launched Amazon Air in 2016, along with the company’s first Amazon One 767 jet. Its fleet now stands at 81 such aircraft, flown by Atlas Air and recently added Sun Country airlines. A May 22 brief by researchers at DePaul University said that Amazon’s fleet could number 200 planes in 7 to 8 years.
Meanwhile, Amazon has also been fleshing out Prime Air, the company’s drone delivery service that was expected to begin operating in select cities in late 2019 but has yet to materialize.