Relax 190..........how long have you been around aviation?

Quite a while!!!

Motor., I just want to make sure I'm making the right move and that I keep myself employed. 🤔

Psssst : these are rumor boards I wouldn't base any career decision on what is posted on APC. Lots of BS floats downstream from here!

According to the media, Amazon is starting with 60 aircraft. ATSG got 20, Atlas got 20...the other 20???? If this is true, maybe the other 20 will go on the new Amazon/FL West certificate...

Every news article I've seen has specifically mentioned 40 airframes; a couple articles have said it could 'eventually' grow to 60.

Source stating definitively 'starting' with 60 aircraft? And where would those 60 aircraft come from?

Has anyone seen a news story that Amazon has bought the certificate? I looked around and couldn't find one...

Yeah, but the rumour was that Connie was gonna do the other 20 but didn't want to sell Amazon an interest in his company, either through stock or warrants, right?

One reason that Amazon bought into ATSG and Atlas was that it obviated the possibility that the FAA would require Amazon to get its own certificate (which it might be required to do on the theory that it was a non-airline using CMI to indirectly "operate" these aircraft that it owned/leased, unless it owns X percent of the operator). If Connie [and, perhaps, other potential operators] balked at letting Amazon invest in his company, buying the Florida West certificate, and going through the trouble of technically becoming a certificated carrier, might allow Amazon to use additional carriers without having to buy a piece of those carriers.

In other words, they might buy a certificate just to comply with certain potential regulatory requirements, and to give themselves additional flexibility to really spread the business around and make the ACMI carriers compete with each other hard on price. Of course, the more you fracture the network, the more of a chore it becomes to manage, and the greater the likelihood is that this negatively-impacts daily reliability. But the more flexibility you have to go "elsewhere", the less other people have leverage over you in the long term, which may be a more-important consideration to Amazon.

So...there's my speculation on top of a rumour on top of speculation. Trying to start off my membership here with a bang!

(As to whether it's 40 or 60 in Amazon's plans, I would note that virtually-everything that was written about Aerosmith in the media was amazingly-ineptly reported, and most of the accurate information appeared in places like this forum. So no reason to believe that that 60 number is real, although it probably is.)

"As part of integrating Southern Air, management decided and committed to pursue a plan to sell Florida West. As a result, the financial results for Florida West are presented as a discontinued operation and the assets and liabilities of Florida West are classified as held for sale. We expect to sell the business in the second half of 2016. As of June 30, 2016, Florida West’s assets held for sale, which are included in Prepaid expenses and other current assets, were $4.5 million."