That startled me, too. Maybe he is referring to the 4 cargo 757s flying for DHL, but more likely the DOD 757 combi business, which is decent-paying international work, albeit not at an enormous frequency. But if one looks at the financials, the DOD is a higher percentage of topline revenue than one might think for a 4-aircraft combi operation.

(If you want to see what is likely a cash-cow DOD-focused 757 operation, take a look at the utilization of National's two pax 757s. National is flying the crap out of them, especially when you consider that many of these flights don't show on public sources once they leave the CONUS. I was surprised, and I don't understand how they get the reliability they need to keep the DOD happy with that kind of schedule and only two (older) aircraft.)

The point was that the planes aren't sitting around waiting for work making it doubtful ATLAS/ATI would drop current revenue sources for low profit online retail lift.

Amazon is buying Whole Foods for 13.7 billion.

So they don't want to be bigger than FDX? They want to be bigger than Food Lion.

More likely they want into the brick & mortar grocery business and they just bought their whole supply chain to do it.


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I don't know about Food Lion, but Kroger (KR) is getting crushed.

They should have bought Piggly-Wiggly.

I remember shopping there in the 70's when based down south. They would give you stamps and you could use the stamps to pay for things out of a catalog!

S&H Green Stamps? My tongue tingles just at the thought of how many of those suckers I licked and stuck in books for my Mother and Grandmother.

Today is the two year anniversary of OP's post.

Yep I heard they are building a MEGA Super hub in CVG....according to some with a space port for moon delivery....

ROFLMAO!!!!!


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Bwahahaha.....


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Well played! Thanks for the reminder!

Nicely done :-)

Well, they are the largest overnight parcel delivery service. But they contract out 80%+ of their parcels to UPS and FedEx! 😂

Well PurpBrown better get ready for some volume coming their way.

Bring it on...

Synchronized Prime On Time! :D


http://media1.break.com/dnet/media/2...083b72bec2.jpg

Now THAT’S funny :D

That's just unsettling.... and unnatural. :eek:

It's like when you go do your last cargo secure check, and there's a DHL pallet next to a UPS pallet next to a FedEx pallet...

Proof the merger is in motion and the new name of FedUp will be the succeeding name.....

Amazon is buying 767’s...How might that affect FedEx?
Could the on-line giant eventually compete on an even footing?...
Clearly Amazon controls very little ramp space at congested airports both domestically and internationally, nor the infrastructure to sort and distribute millions of packages daily without the USPS, FedEx, and UPS.

However after looking at the financials there might be something else to consider:

FedEx Corporation enterprise value: 68.7 Billion dollars
Enterprise Value = (total company value)

Amazon Corporation enterprise value: 562 Billion dollars
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos net worth: 98 Billion

Jeff Bezos personally has more net worth than the total value of FedEx. Clearly there are a number of variables, however if you wanted to expand the Amazon airport ramp presence both domestically and internationally, control of the largest wide body fleet of aircraft in the world, and FedEx Office services it seems reasonable that FedEx could be considered low hanging fruit.

Amazon Prime Air
 

Amazon has not purchased any new or used 767s, they have leased 767s from ATSG and AAWW.

Why buy, when you can have a few contractors and whipsaw them against one another?

Or, just buy DHL, and no more cabotage issues. Instant network.

Sounds like a plan, I’ll let them know.:-)

Amazon - Press Room - Press Release

32 planes? That's more than I was aware of. Where is all the flying going? Are some of these non-767's? That seems puffed up as a number.
CVG investments also seem a bit slower. Wondering if they are getting colder feet in this space.

Atlas has 12 767-300s flying for Amazon now. I believe ATSG has all 20 flying, a mix of already-owned 767-200s and some 767-300s.

The flying seems to be split about halfway between CVG hub flying and point to point. Point to point includes lots of flying in ONT and BWI (sort of 'focus cities'), and typical 'outstations' (from CVG or point to point) include SEA, SCK, DFW, IAH, SKF, RFD, TPA, MIA, CLT, ABE, and PVD. I'm sure I left some out.

The system seems to be working pretty well, despite each company's operational/staffing issues. There's a lot less need to be perfect when the customer has a 2-day delivery window! I think this operation is saving Amazon A LOT of money compared to shipping each parcel with UPS or FDX.

https://www.wcpo.com/news/insider/amazon-facility-on-track-to-begin-operations-at-cvg-by-2020

32 is not puffed up. ATSG is operating 20 and Atlas has about 12 online and bringing more on throughout 2018. All 767

Atlas now has 14 of the prime numbered 767s on property with more arriving each month.

Wonder where the 767’s are coming from?

All the planes have already been acquired and Come from all corners of the globe; pax conversions.

Essentially-correct. However, the 32 aircraft quoted in the article is the right number of Amazon dry-leased aircraft in service at present (20 at ATSG, 12 at Atlas).

Remember that 1709A isn't dry-leased to Amazon; it's an Atlas-owned aircraft that is used as an operational/maintenance spare for Amazon as well as for other Atlas duties. This is why it is painted all-white. And 1399A, which went into paint in VCV a week ago (12/23/17), following a lengthier-than-normal conversion, isn't going into service for Amazon for a few months.

Amazon reserves one ATI and one Atlas 767-300 as a hot spare, one in CVG and one at ONT, but each carrier group also has maintenance spares that are used sometimes for Amazon and sometimes for other business: 255CM (767-200) at ATI, 1709A at Atlas, and 395CM at ATI. ABX has a little more slack in its fleet to cover unexpected needs than do the other two.

As to sourcing, WTFover is correct. They come from all over the place; all the 767-200s were previously-converted, and of the 767-300s, all but 1709A were specifically-converted from pax aircraft for this duty. The CAM 767-300s are less-diverse and generally have had fewer owners than the Titan ones; e.g. three retired from QANTAS and three retired from American (plus two ex-NZ that had interesting subsequent lives). Some of the ex-American aircraft being converted by CAM are older than one might expect, but are now their feedstock of choice. At least the last eight and next five CAM conversions (including ones for other customers) are retired-AA.

For the member who asked about composition of tails, there are:
Six 767-200s dry-leased to Amazon by CAM for five years and flown by ABX;
Six 767-200s dry-leased to Amazon by CAM for five years and flown by ATI (714AX, 791AX, 739AX, 761CX, 762CX, 763CX);
Eight 767-300s dry-leased to Amazon by CAM for seven years and flown by ATI (307AZ, 311AZ, 313AZ, 331AZ, 337AZ, 347AZ, 353AZ, 359AZ);
Twelve 767-300s dry leased to Amazon by Titan/Andromeda (sometimes with ownership by single-purpose entities) for ten years and flown by Atlas (1997A, 1217A, 1049A, 1229A, 1321A, 1181A, 1093A, 1361A, 1327A, 1381A, 1373A, 1409A);
Eight more 767-300s to be dry-leased to Amazon by Titan/Andromeda for ten years and flown by Atlas (1399A, 1427A, 1013A, 1511A, 1439A, 1487A, 1619A, and one more).

In each case, the carrier operating agreement is shorter than the dry lease by a couple of years. Each operating agreement is also terminable for convenience on a small number of months' notice, but the dry-lease isn't.

You all probably know this but the reason the tail numbers are not consecutive is that they are all "Prime" numbers. So, for example, in the 300 range, ATSG has used all the prime numbers except 317 and 349 (and the six prime numbers after 359). (I think 317az was reserved by CAM for a while, but no longer is, and 349az is some guy's kit aircraft.)

Lot's of useful info and I stand corrected. ATI is up to 14 planes -
kinda nuts. Thanks for some interesting ready.

Wjcandee that is some detailed info. Thank you for the time to post it.

Great, great info wjcandee, as always.

Just one note: Atlas has had two Amazon hot spares for the past three months; or at least planned to have them as spares. One at CVG, and one at BWI (in October it was in CLT). Both CVG and BWI R3 reserve were in the bid packets for Jan and Feb.

I do have a question that I would appreciate your insight on: About a week ago, an afternoon Atlas Amazon flight CVG-IAH went mechanical. They swapped from the Amazon tail into a DHL tail (N65_GT) to cover the flight. How the heck did they do that?! Do DHL and AMZN have an agreement to cover each other's flying? I mean, the N65_GT aircraft are all owned by DHL, right?

This industry is more incestuous than 18th century European royalty.

I believe that you are correct that those ex-Airborne Express 767-200s are owned (or controlled) by DHL, and Atlas operates them under a CMI agreement.

Assuming that that is the case, and that one or more flights took place as you described, I do not believe that Atlas would just up and do that. Generally, these agreements do not provide the CMI carrier with the right to use the aircraft at its discretion in other operations. However, there is nothing to say that the aircraft owner can't agree with Amazon (or UPS or FedEx or USPS or whomever) to cause the aircraft to be operated by the CMI carrier on a flight [pursuant to the relevant FARs] at the behest of whomever. Particularly during Peak, if there is stranded freight, the aircraft owner can agree to help out another entity, assuming that the CMI carrier has the pilots and willingness to fly it.

I don't know about this specific instance, but there were multiple such operations by a variety of carriers during Peak, and that's the way they were handled. The aircraft owner/lessee responds to a request by another carrier or entity for help.

This is in the spirit of Joe Patroni and his ilk.

Hope this is useful...

PS You guys are too nice. Happy to assemble the info above for y'all. And thanks for the correction about the second GTI hot spare! I wasn't aware of the second one.

I have seen ABX flying DHL tails on occasional AMZ flights out of ABE and SKF in the last year.

It’s kind of funny about the tails. A few years ago one of our white ABX branded airplanes was going into I think Panama for DHL. The ground people refused to marshall it in until our Spanish speaking loadmaster went down through the E&E compartment and explained who we were.

And yeah we frequently fly yellow airplanes on the Amazon system.