I've not seen this in print and there are a ton of problems to the plan but I don't think that with Amazons money they are insurmountable. Why not buy the USPS off the US government. If you commit to home mail delivery staying as it is for let's say 30 or more years and keeping the workforce that is there Amazon would receive a turn key operation that already delivers to every address in the USA and it's territories.

The US government keeps home delivery for every citizen and rids itself of a burden that it hasn't really wanted since the 1980's or earlier. It also eliminates overnight the pension expense in the Federal budget of all of those retired mail workers.

While the cost would be high to Amazon they have the market capitalization to pull it off. With a Republican president and congress now would be a great time to push for privatization.

Some people, especially older Americans who rely more heavily on snail mail to do business might fight it but much like Amtrak does the federal government really need to be in the mail or rail business in the digital era?

I don't see anything that bans a third party from delivering the mail as long as congress continues to monitor that delivery. There are contract mail carriers all over rural America. This would be the same thing only on a massive scale. There could still be a Postmaster General and staff to make sure the third party maintains the minimum service while they are maximizing the rest of the operation.

I get almost nothing in the mail that I could not receive digitally. As a tax payer I am all for privatization of services that the private sector could do better and cheaper.

Agree; BUT, right now it appears Amazon is making the same mistakes DHL made...first and foremost, using ACMI carriers may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for. If they ever want to compete with UPS/FEDEX they need to have direct control of the airline. On time performance failures will not be tolerated by US business customers(as DHL found out in less than 2 years) and will soon wear thin with the door to door consumers. DHL never understood the first 10 minutes of “Castaway”...time will tell if Bezos is a Tom Hanks fan

No one will ever compete with Purple or Brown by doing it on the cheap and trying to undercut. Both DHL and Amazon despise employees and thus contract out as much as possible to the lowest bidder and I don't think they are capable of changing their business model. FedEx and UPS have frontline EMPLOYEES with skin in the game and it seriously shows when comparing the ramp operations in MEM, SDF and CVG. And I have flown using all three call signs.

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Amazon won't compete with anyone if the ACMIs think they can continue to offer low QOL and low pay with no work rules. There will be no one to staff the planes.

There are plenty of snowflakes willing to sell their soul for 80k to fly those shiny primes metals. They've done it at the commuters for a fraction of that.

Just do a YouTube search and you’ll find a plethora of videos with FDX/UPS delivery guys (as with Amazon gig drivers, although not as many...yet) doing all kinds of dastardly deeds to someone’s packages. Being a uniform wearing W2 employee isn’t necessarily indicative of a good work ethic.

DHL uses the same model all over the world and is far and away the largest freight/package/next day company in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. They can compete in the USA just fine using ACMI airlines if they learned the lessons from the last time.

I can hear the peanut gallery now. But, but, but UPS brought it in house because the contract guys couldn't do it to their standards. The ACMI carriers of today are nothing like the ones in the 1980's. But, but, but the FAA wont let them operate this way because of operational control. Again, not the 1980's. We gave had 30 years now of the majors effectively controlling the regionals and the FAA hasn't stepped in. The political climate is far different today also.

Trust me, our German Overlords know how to move freight, on time, anywhere in the world. Yes they made a mistake in the US years ago. But I wouldn't bet on them repeating it.