Amazon Air, the e-commerce giant's fleet of aircraft for transporting goods, makes Madrid and Barcelona key points on its first European routes
Among Amazon's multiple businesses, the e-commerce giant also takes to the air through Amazon Air. This air fleet, which uses both its own aircraft and third-party aircraft, is used by Jeff Bezos' company to transport goods in the United States and is beginning to expand in Europe, with the Spanish airports of Madrid and Barcelona as part of its first routes. in the Old Continent.
It is a growing activity, which went from chartering 85 daily flights in May 2020 to 140 in February 2021. Most of them are in the United States and Canada, in airports such as Cincinnati (Ohio), Ontario (California ), Dallas (Texas) or Chicago (Illinois), but it has also reached the European continent, according to research by the Chaddick Institute for the development of cities, belonging to DePaul University, located in Chicago.
This educational institution has tracked the planes used by Amazon Air through the Planespotters website for aviation enthusiasts and, based on their photographs, has used the registration numbers of the planes to identify the flights on the flightradar24 platform, such as those of this Amazon Air plane that makes European routes. Among the authors of the study is a Spaniard, Borja Manuel González, a second-year student on the sustainable development master's degree at this institute, who has participated in the research
"Our conclusions are that there has been a growth in the fleet and in the number of flights per day. They have gone from having 40 active planes to 59, which is an increase of 48%. Amazon has just bought some more planes and the fleet It could expand to more than 66 aircraft in June. We anticipate that, in 2023, it will increase its fleet to 100 aircraft, based on the evolution observed," González explains in a videoconference conversation with Business Insider Spain.
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Although its fleet is "relatively small" compared to US logistics companies such as Fedex or UPS, which exceed 250 planes each, the researchers note a steady increase in flights, probably driven by the growth of the company's e-commerce activity. . "We believe that another of the strategies that Amazon is trying with the expansion of Amazon Air is guaranteed deliveries within 24 hours," adds the researcher.
Business Insider Spain has contacted Amazon, but the company has declined to comment on this strategy. However, the company has referred to a statement in which they confirm that they had a fleet of "more than 70 aircraft operating in the Amazon Air cargo network" worldwide until the end of 2020.
Madrid and Barcelona, on Amazon Air's 2 European routes
Reuters/Pascal Rossignol
Europe is an incipient focus in Amazon's air strategy, which publicly announced in November 2020 the start of its activities on the continent at the Leipzig/Halle airport (Germany), where it revealed that it had acquired a 20,000-meter cargo facility square meters with the aim of offering "an additional connection to the Amazon delivery network in Europe", according to the e-commerce company in a statement, in which it highlighted that this initiative would mean the creation of 200 jobs and that, during the pandemic, was used to transport 29 million masks, 100,000 thermometers and 3 million gloves.
Amazon also revealed that it had leased two Boeing 737-800 aircraft from GECAS, the aviation services subsidiary of US conglomerate General Electric, operated by ASL Ireland Airlines, an Irish company that also services DHL and FedEx.
The daily route from Leipzig is a round trip with the following itinerary: Leipzig-Barcelona-Rome-Paris-Leipzig, according to data collected by researchers from the Chaddick Institute for the development of cities.
However, according to their data, there is another route: Cologne-Milan-Cologne-Madrid, with daily round trips. "These routes are made practically every day. They are medium distances (480 kilometers) between strategic points for Amazon, but they are decentralized," Borja González explains to Business Insider Spain. The 2 points of departure and arrival of the planes, Cologne and Leipzig, coincide with hubs for UPS and DHL, respectively, which makes some sense.
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The Spanish representative in this research group admits that his conclusions come from the information that they have been able to collect through public consultation platforms. What is conclusive is that Amazon Air's activity in Spain has increased. "There has been a drastic expansion in this sense, the Colonia-Madrid and Leipzig-Barcelona routes are among those that have grown," adds Borja González.
Madrid and Barcelona are key points in Amazon's logistics structure. The e-commerce giant has Tech Hubs in both cities, the centers bring together software developers, computer engineers and data scientists, while it has warehouses in the outskirts of both cities. Near Madrid are those of San Fernando and Alcalá de Henares, in addition to the soon-to-open logistics station Leganés; and in the vicinity of Barcelona are those of El Prat and the logistics station of Rubí, as well as the next openings of Barcelona, Montcada and Mollet del Vallés.
It is noteworthy that, for the moment, it has not detected Amazon Air activity in the United Kingdom, nor in Ireland or in other European countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland or the Czech Republic. "Amazon will need to expand the network if it wants to assimilate it to the geographical coverage that its network has in the United States," warns the study by the Chaddick Institute, which foresees a new Amazon Air plane flying through European skies soon and anticipates "an important development of the network in the coming year.
A growing business with services to third parties
Reuters/Jason Redmin
The researchers anticipate that Amazon will increase the density of its air transport network during this year 2021, for which they forecast a growth of 15%, until reaching 160 daily flights in this month of June. "This growth will be critical to the expansion of Amazon's one-day delivery options," they explain in the study.
They also anticipate a growth of their points in Europe to Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg or Eastern Europe from the introduction of a third aircraft in their incipient European network.
On the other hand, the authors of the study point to a parallel business: package transport for third parties in the United States, where they consider that airports such as CVG in Cincinatti —where it operates some 30 daily flights— could become one of the centers of this type. of shipments. "Amazon's interest in third-party delivery is unclear, but we expect it to make some headway in the next 18 months," the researchers predict.
This same month of June, one of the first clients of Amazon's air transport fleet was known: the United States postal service. According to The Information, the e-commerce company is beginning to provide cargo transportation services for the postal company, according to a worker at its cargo center in Baltimore (Maryland, United States). Will it be the first step of those of Jeff Bezos in the air cargo transport sector?