Most Under-Reported Story This Past Week? Amazon Air -- January 6, 2021

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

I don't directly own any shares in Amazon. Amazon is down 1% in early trading. It was down almost 2% pre-market. 

Amazon absolutely fascinates me as a company -- I'm not interested in it as an investment one way or the other. This is simply about the company. The same as my feelings about Apple, although I do invest in the latter. 

So, back to Amazon. This is the most under-reported story so far this year: Amazon buys eleven aircraft to expand its air fleet. I posted that earlier this week, suggesting that headline seemed redundant. Of course, purchasing eleven aircraft would expand its air fleet. But we move on. 

This is the bigger story: Amazon, already moving aggressively into trucking is now moving aggressively into the air cargo industry. 

This is the first time Amazon has actually bought aircraft; previously all Amazon aircraft were leased. 

Let's repeat that: this is the first time Amazon has actually bought aircraft; previously all Amazon aircraft were leased.

From The Motley Foot: 

• buying, not leasing, eleven aircraft from Delta Air Lines and WestJet Airlines
• this purchase marks the first time Amazon has not leased any airplanes for its Prime fleet
• it expects to have 85 plans (owned and leased) in service by the end of next year (2022); another source says 88;
  
• Amazon leases most of its cargo a/c through Air Transport Services Group; Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings; and, GE
  
• ATSG: provides the fleet with 767s
• AWWH: provides 737s and 767s
• GE: leases 15 737s to Amazon through its GE Capital Aviation Services
  
• but look at this: Amazon has taken an ownership stake in both ATSG and AWWH;
  
• Amazon division: Amazon Global Air
• Amazon looks to become a major threat to FedEx and UPS; could grow into a major a/c carrier with as many as 200 planes in the next seven or eight years, at which time it would be close in size to UPS

From Yahoo!Finance:

• new planes to be operated by third-party carriers;
• Amazon is taking advantage of the glut in relatively new used a/c
• last summer, Delta retired seven Boeing 767-300s
• Delta: plans to accelerate the retirement of its remaining 59 767s, part of a larger strategy to simplify and modernize its fleet
• WestJet removed its four 767 a/c from service last year
• Westjet has transitioned to 787 a/c for service to Europe
• Amazon hubs
• in November, 2020, Amazon launched its first-ever air hub at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany
• other regional air operations opened by Amazon Air last year (2020) include:
• Lakeland Linder International Airport, Florida
• John F. Kennedy International Airport, NYC
• San Francisco International Airport
• Chicago O'Hare International Airport
• Richmond International Airport, Virginia
• Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Texas
• Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport, Puerto Rico
• Kahului Airport, Hawaii
• Kona International Airport, Hawaii
• Lost Angeles International Airport
• Louis Armstrong International Airport, New Orleans
• scheduled to open
• a large West Coast hub in San Bernardino, CA, early this year (2021)
• its $1.5 billion national hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport this summer

EVs: Amazon-backed Rivian close to raising fresh funding at $25 billion valuation; link here;

• Rivian backed by Ford, Amazon, T. Rowe Price Group, and BlackRock Inc
• setting 2021 as target date for pickup trucks: R1T, R1S, and Amazon delivery vehicles
• initial batch of R1T delivery is expected sometime in June, 2021
• one of the first battery-powered pickup trucks in US markets
• apparently can carry 11,000 pounds
• range: 300 miles on a single charge
• said to be currently manufacturing 100,000 Amazon delivery vehicles
• Tesla: the "Cybertruck" to be delivered by the end of 2021