NatGeo

I agree with you about how Amazon should not have been allowed to get into the airline business. I think the government should have policed that using anti-monopoly legislation. Bezos may be a liberal but he sure does not have a good reputation with the way he treats employees. Hopefully Prime Air under performs and under delivers. Bezos will hopefully get an expensive lesson in weather, duty time, labor shortage and excess capacity.

whalesurfer

Wow. Thank God you weren't around when UPS first started out.. ..or Ford. ..or any major US company for that matter.

"The US government should have policed.."

Wow, did you get your business degree at the Moscow communist community college? What the ...??

whalesurfer

Is that what happened?

I'm sure fdx and ups wouldn't have made promises to Amazon's top brass that they knew they couldn't possibly guarantee.. ..uhmm, yeah..

CA Deplorable

The ACMI market has consolidated, there are only a few players. Kalitta and Atlas. (Atlas owns Southern, Polar, and Florida West). The only outsiders in the heavy lift department are Western Global, Skylease-Centurian and National Airlines. Then you get to medium lift ATSG owns ATI and ABX. Whos' left? (777,747,MD,767,757).

l8fr82hub

NAC? Ameriyet? Maybe a couple more?

boiler

Right. The government should ban people who do things that we don't like. Land of the free, and all.

Tango Uniform

Uhmmm yeah it did happen. Overloaded both systems the last few days of peak with last minute orders. Even taking orders Dec. 24th claiming to be delivered Dec. 25th.

What happened on the DFW ramp tonight? N147up was spitting fuel out of the right wing had to have been at least 100 gallons. Good way to beat Amazon🙄🙄🙄

whalesurfer

Yes, it did happen.
My point was that fdx and ups blamed some or maybe even most of the delivery screw ups back then on amazon promising their customers too much and too late. I think we agree on this?

However, amazon management told a much different story to their employees. A friend who's a mid-level manager at their Concord, NC center said she heard they'd check-in with fdx and ups to get updates on the "last minute" deadlines for a package to reach a customer before Christmas. Apparently purple and brown were sliding the deadline closer and closer to Christmas to match the "other guys".
If they say they can deliver by Christmas then so can we!

IF true then yes, amazon did promise too much to their customers.
..and purple and brown promised too much to their customer - amazon.

Who knows what really happened? I suspect the truth lies somewhere in-between.

Tango Uniform

I'd have to agree.

PurpleToolBox

Yes, that's exactly what happened. I was at my dad's place on the 23rd last year. All day long, even that evening on TV every commercial break featured an Amazon commercial promising delivery by Christmas. And Amazon wasn't the only company touting next day delivery by Christmas. Ordering that late, especially that late in the day, is going to make it damn near impossible for a shipping company (even Amazon) to deliver the next day.

Then you throw in some crazy, unexpected tornadic weather, and you can see why *some* Amazon packages didn't make it on time for Christmas.

All tornado warnings expired in MS, AR, West TN - WMC Action News 5 - Memphis, Tennessee

There's only so much volume that can be sent over night. And you can't have delays for weather. Exceed the volume and/or have bad weather and you end up with delays. Amazon is not exempt from this. In fact, they're more susceptible since their aircraft require higher takeoff/landing minima than FDX.