News / Amazon Air axes smaller-volume routes while boosting US hub flows

Like the integrated express carriers, Amazon is transforming its air network, reducing flights but boosting capacity by fielding larger aircraft, with an increasing focus on hubs in its core market.

In Europe the company has slashed flights by more than a third.

According to the latest report from the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University, which has been monitoring the internet giant’s air operations for years, Amazon’s flight network has shrunk by 1.8% since last March, but capacity has risen 4.9% with the deployment of three more B767Fs and one A330F.

Overall, with Amazon no longer using AT-72 turboprops, its aircraft fleet count has dropped by one. This reflects a change in its US air network, which fell from 53 airports a year ago to 47, losing services to six, including Tampa, Des Moines and Omaha, and slashing flights to Las Vegas and Baltimore-Washington.

Chaddick director Joe Schwieterman noted that the headwinds that buffeted the integrators – weakening demand for space on its flights and rising costs – had also caused Amazon to shift traffic from air to ground and reduce point-to-point flying in favour of rapid fulfilment and overnight parcel transport, rather than moving inventory.

This shift makes the Amazon operation more resemble the air networks of the integrators, with its US network increasingly focused on hubs. More than four out of five domestic flights now involve its five largest hubs, and over half of the flights are concentrated in the Ohio Valley, where Amazon has hubs in Cincinnati and Wilmington.

Daily flight operations at Cincinnati climbed from 57.7 in February 2023 to 63.3 this year, with four airports, San Bernardino, Lakeland, Fort Worth Alliance and Wilmington, averaging more than 20 flights a day.

Amazon stands to take delivery of nine more converted A330 freighters, which should again boost the role of its hubs, Mr Schwieterman noted. With the full contingent of A330s, capacity should be 17.1% higher, although Amazon did say they would be replacing ageing B767Fs.

In characteristic fashion, Amazon has not said how far it intends to rely on third-party lift, or how the emergence of a new e-commerce model, spearheaded by Temu and Shein with single shipments direct from China to US destinations, bypassing distribution centres, is affecting its air strategy.

While its capacity in North America and elsewhere has expanded, in Europe, Amazon’s flying is in retreat. It has increased lift in Canada and India over the past year, whereas European flights slumped 37.5% since March 2023, following a 29% drop the year before.

Apparently the European operation has seen the migration of traffic to surface transport that has also affected shorter routes in the US. The Chaddick study points out that, between 35% and 40% of European populations live within 100 miles of an airport served by Amazon, and 80% are within 300 miles.

“Such distances can be covered within a day on a truck,” it notes.

For the coming 12 months and beyond, however, the authors predict a rebound in Amazon’s European flying, and further expansion – at a measured pace – in the US.

And, they added: “Amazon’s entry into India foreshadows new routes in developing countries, with South America, the Pacific Rim and Middle East flying being solid possibilities. However, we expect Amazon to start small in these regions.”