Originally Posted by
BoilerUP
Amazon isn't a true express package delivery company like FDX that can deliver something from one side of the country (or world) to another in 18 hours via their air network, they are a retailer that stocks dozens of massive fulfillment centers across the country where the bulk of their last mile shipments originate and uses airplanes to move stuff between fulfillment centers.
Actually, they use the airplanes to layer more distant shipments to individuals into their last mile network. So you are correct that something going from a Virginia DC to a New York recipient will go by truck from Virginia to the "Sorting Center" at Avenel, NJ, where it will be sorted for delivery to a last-mile provider: a local post office, or a carrier like LaserShip, or, now, to Amazon's organic last-mile carrier, AMZL. But all the air network does is layer packages into that last-mile network by delivering them by trailer to the Sorting Center. The Sorting Center processes don't care whether they are receiving a trailer of packages from Virginia or Delaware, or instead a trailer of packages that has come from ABE off of the plane from ONT.
The air network is not there primarily to move bulk shipments of the same item between distribution centers. It's there to move packaged customer orders from distribution centers to sorting centers, just like Amazon's ground line-haul network does. It's a minor point, but one that is important conceptually. It's this fact that media often miss when trying to understand what it is that Amazon's doing with its airplanes.