It's amazing to me how this one (not involving FedEx, but one of the other ACMI carriers doing Amazon flying) refuses to die even in the face of all of the evidence that it's not true.

Amazon is not interested in running an airline. They aren't trying to start an airline. They are interested in shipping their own stuff in a way that they control. They are plenty happy to continue using ACMI or other carriers (more and more as time goes on, having added Sun Country and now Hawaiian to the mix, as well as Cargojet in Canada and some European carrier over on the far side of the Atlantic) to do it. One of their managers has even said that they like using multiple airlines because they can move the flying around to others if one of them gets a little uppity. Anyone at ABX air in the 2016-2017 timeframe can attest to the truth of that statement. Amazon is not going to give that kind of leverage to a single unionized pilot group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ35SOU9HTM

Difficult to imagine China would award this given their own capacity with home-grown cargo airlines, plus their general disdain for western companies these days.

Maybe they just want us to build a big sort facility, invade Taiwan, and steal all our infrastructure and technology in a couple years?