Amazon unveils cargo plane as it expands delivery network

Online giant Amazon unveiled its first branded airplane Amazon One today, part of what is expected to be a fleet of “Prime Air” cargo planes.

Amazon Prime has continued to expand and as a result Amazon has leased 40 planes from Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings and is using 11 of them to deliver Prime packages to users of their exclusive service.

But the e-commerce juggernaut plans to launch its first ever branded cargo plane, the Amazon One, at Seattle’s SeaFair Air Show on Friday.

Amazon has revealed its latest effort to speed up delivery.

Yet some analysts wonder if the buildup of planes, trucking power and drivers should be interpreted as something of a warning shot that Amazon has more ambitious plans to take greater control of the delivery process. Amazon past year unveiled Amazon Flex, an Uber-like service that lets regular people deliver packages for the company.

The main objective of the new “Prime” service is to deliver all of the packages across the USA, within a day or two with no-extra-cost.

Debuting at the recent Seafair Air Show near Seattle, Amazon’s new plane is a massive Boeing 767-300, which according to Boeing is capable of transporting loads weighing up to 58 tons across distances of over 3,000 nautical miles in a single flight.

The aircraft’s paint job.is mostly white, with “Prime Air” on both sides, a blue bottom that leads up the fuselage into a stripe, and a dark gray tail with Amazon’s “smile” logo on it. For instance, in 2013, the firm was forced to offer refunds to some customers after bad weather delayed Christmas ship for both FedEx and UPS. “There’s so much volume that if you have to add transportation for yourself, why would you pay a retail price when you can get wholesale?” The company also mentioned that it has entered into agreements to lease a fleet of 40 planes to serve customers all around the globe.

The company, which has seen its share price rise by more than 50 per cent since its February low-point, has launched several initiatives in an attempt to speed up deliveries.

Their second quarter profit accounts to a massive $857 million on $30 billion.

“Once you have those planes, it certainly creates the opportunity for new products for customers”, Clark added.