Primed for growth: Amazon Air's freighter fleet, flight activity, and payload capacity compared to FedEx and UPS

Abstract

This article measures the growing scale and geographic scope of Amazon Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of the retailing giant Amazon, between May 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and September 2022. It evaluates data on Amazon Air's evolving flight operations and compares its payload capacity with FedEx Express and United Parcel Service (UPS), both prominent air-cargo integrators focused heavily on retail package delivery. It reviews the technical specifications of the 21 types of planes in their fleets to assess their growth rates.The number of airports served by Amazon Air grew from 25 to 67, while the percentage of the U.S. population within 100 miles of one of its airports increased from 54% to 73% during the study period. Its planes' maximum payload (tonnage) capacity grew by 108.8%. Amazon Air grew from 7.5% to 14.6% of FedEx's capacity and from 11.2% to 20.0% of UPS's capacity. Its cubic volume of capacity grew at an even faster pace relative to these other providers. Such growth was apparently fueled by e-commerce's growing share of retail trade, Amazon's desire to bring more of its shipping “in-house,” and a need to better control its supply chain.