Amazon is working to expand its air-cargo operations, and over the weekend unveiled its first branded airplane, a refurbished Boeing 767-300. The Prime Air jet was shown off to the public in Seattle’s Seafair airshow. The company said they will have a fleet of 40 of the refurbished 767 jets up and flying in Amazon livery within a couple of years, to connect package-fulfillment centers across the country. Amazon already is working with Atlas Air to operate a fleet of 10 leased 767 freighters out of Wilmington, Ohio.
Amazon ships more than 1 billion packages a year, compared to about 3 billion delivered in a year by FedEx, according to Tribune News. The company will continue to use FedEx and UPS to ship packages, said Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations. “Because of our growth and the sheer amount of packages, we are supplementing our transportation needs,” he told the Tribune.
