Amazon One is the latest addition to the eCommerce giant’s ever-expanding trucking and transportation fleet, with 40 more planes on the way.
Amazon’s Transportation Fleet Unveils New Amazon One Airplane
Seattle-based Amazon debuted their newest asset during Seattle’s annual Seafair celebration, including a live Facebook video event for those who didn’t have a Puget Sound ring-side view. Flying alongside the Blue Angels, Amazon One is the latest addition to the eCommerce giant’s ever-expanding transportation fleet.
Meet Amazon One, the First of 40 Branded Planes Their Growing Transportation Fleet
The team members who had a front row seat to the Amazon One project share their experience in this behind the scenes video below. Amazon One is reportedly just the first of what will ultimately be a 40-plane strong transportation fleet, meant to aid the eCommerce giant in fulfilling delivery promises to customers.
Choosing a local venue for its launch, Amazon One took to the airways during Seattle’s annual Seafair celebration, an event featuring hydroplane races and the wildly popular Blue Angels air show each summer. The event was also streamed live on Facebook, where internet viewers had a chance to share ‘likes’ and emojis in real time.
In the time-lapse video below, you’ll see how a massive Boeing 767-300 cargo jet gets transformed from blah to Amazon-bold, becoming not just a member of the Amazon transportation fleet, but the aerial representation of the Amazon Prime member benefits, designated Amazon Prime-Air.
The Implications of Amazon’s Growing Transportation Fleet
It’s no secret that Amazon is building its own transportation fleet, but Amazon One and the 40 planes that will make up Amazon Prime-Air isn’t the eCommerce retailer’s first move. Nearly a year ago, we first reported that Amazon was expanding into transportation.
While the world was watching to see whether its drone program would take off, the company quietly began adding Amazon Prime-branded semi-trucks and trailers to its U.S. transportation fleet. While the company does employ some drivers of its own, it also contracts Amazon Prime cargo transportation out to several different carriers.
Within a month of that article, we reported that Amazon was also adding “last mile” delivery trucks to its growing logistics and distribution network and that the company had also acquired fulfillment centers located in hub cities in the U.S. (they have also acquired similar entities worldwide and already have their own last mile delivery service in the U.K.)
Adding these capabilities has been necessary, with Amazon Prime members and other eCommerce shoppers buying from the site apparently ordering more than FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service – combined – could accommodate. Amazon has signaled that its growing transportation fleet is being developed not to replace these other shippers, but to enable the company to keep up with the delivery expectations of its customers.
Planes, trains and automobiles – and that’s not all. Amazon has hundreds of fulfillment centers worldwide including nearly 200 in the United States with more than 70 million square feet of warehouse, storage and shipping space to play with, and over 23 million more on the way. Along with predictive data, these distribution centers help the company keep promises to Amazon Prime members for 2-day delivery on millions of the items for sale on its eCommerce platform.
Nor has Amazon given up on developing a network of delivery drones. Despite not having yet achieved success in obtaining legislation that would make drone delivery part of the Amazon shopper’s everyday life, it’s still working on the program.
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