I love how the Amazon planes are apart of the amazon tv commercial. They sure like to claim us in the media but deny operational control.

anyone know who it was being filmed on the Cvg take off? Never saw any film crews out there.

What exactly would you like Amazon to do? They are marketing themselves. It is what they do? Do you think the general public would understand operational control or even care? All I or anybody else but perhaps you cares about is that I click on an object and it shows up at my door.

Amazon claims they are not an air carrier. I saw the patriots had a plane that got some PPE from china - does this ABX (I assume) logic mean that the patriots are an air carrier? Come on. The current law is not that if you charter a certificate holder that you become that certificate holder... not saying it shouldn't be or couldn't be changed to mean that, but for now big companies, rich individuals, rich business etc all contract out flight ops in various ways, and even though they may have lots of input on where and when and even how plane is painted that doesn't make these customers carriers.

My own assumption - Amazon will become a carrier when it can fly planes without pilots. If you want Amazon in charge fully, with full FAA approval and certificate etc, better get ready for single pilot or no pilot cargo ops. Are you pushing for that? Because they very well may enter the space if they can automate lots of folks out of a job.

This has always been my fear for a few years now. The existing air carriers are not going to take on the risk of unmanned flight. However, Bezos has the money to blow and he's got some of the best tech people around to design it. But I can also see him going to the big airplane manufacturers and secretly design a large cargo drone.

I don't think they currently have ANY interest in doing this. BUT - they have one of the largest computer / tech team footprints in the world. So if you have the absolute biggest automation / tech hammer in the world, everything starts to look like a nail. This let's them do job deskilling. A bunch of workers / contractors getting paid in the < $50K / year range who do what the app or screen tells them (pick / pack / even deliver etc). This doesn't always mean jobs go away, but good traditionally union skilled jobs seem to.


Now you tell Amazon they HAVE to run ABX?? Maybe they pull contracts, bankrupt ATSG, buy up assets keep the ATI folks happy, dump the ABX deals, pension guarantees, restrictions on where airplanes can fly and selectively hire back pilots etc. I don't get the ABX fixation on having Amazon as their direct masters. You think they will put up with folks not answering their phones? It sounds like a marriage made in absolute hell.

Operational control was one of the issues (among others) that forced UPS to create it’s in house airline.

Its not a technology issue. Security (terrorism attacking geographical human remote pilot sites, airports where aircraft are taking off and landing locally by necessity), jamming or spoofing frequencies, ICAO rules and agreement (Good luck on that protocol taking place in next decade or longer, insurance (liability). Even Amazon can be bankrupted by countries or a country allowing repeated multibillion dollar payouts to people underneath a wreck. Amazon finds solutions to these few challenges and how to remove bad actors targeting remote large aerial remote vehicles (juicy targets) or the ground support systems, find insurance companies with partners to accept unknown liability untested in courts, then something the 25 year old ATP needs to start wondering a timeline. Not a technology issue....

"I don't get the ABX fixation on having Amazon as their direct masters."[/QUOTE]

I did not realize there was one.....ATI is the ATSG airline that has the Amazon bag tags. DHL is a bigger customer for ABX.

The ABX folks are the ones saying Amazon has "operational control" - or complaining that they don't take over with operational control. I'm responding to the thread starter.


ABX pilots are the ones pushing the "Amazon Air struggling to find pilots". [1] (which I'm not sure is true, ATI seems to able to find plenty). ABX struggles to find pilots partly because it was pretty clear they didn't want more Amazon flying and have pretty much burned their Amazon bridges.


I've no idea what the beef is with Amazon showing a plane in their colors in a commercial - they probably had it painted that way for marketing reasons just as others do (patriots etc) and a commercial is part of their marketing.


[1] https://qz.com/1763226/amazon-air-is...o-into-pilots/

David Soaper doesn’t want Amazon business because it would mess up his side job of flipping houses!