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.