Carrier has taken decisive steps to implement an international strategy, with the successful launch of an intra-Europe network, according to latest study. Amazon’s airline arm, Amazon Air, has taken decisive steps to implement an international strategy and is positioned for sustained growth in the next six months, according to a study by DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development in Chicago.
The results of its latest analysis, Strategic moves by Amazon Air: Winter 2021, follow a September 2020 Amazon Air Brief, which described Amazon’s ‘summer surge’ that occurred between May and September 2020 and included new hub development and the company’s broadening geographic reach.
A previous study issued by the Institute in May 2020 focused on growth forecasts for the Amazon Air fleet with the number of aircraft possibly reaching 200 by 2028.
The latest study notes that among Amazon Air’s most significant developments of the past year is the emergence of intra-Europe operation serving four countries, using planes registered under the Amazon Air name.
“Almost immediately after leasing a pair of planes (B737-800s) in October and November to ASL Ireland Airlines, the contractor deployed them on major routes within Western Europe. ASL is a familiar player in the cargo scene, providing services for both DHL and FedEx. Previously, Amazon Air had been reportedly working with carriers using non-Amazon planes to meet its European needs.”
The move co-incided with Amazon inaugurating its first-ever European air hub, located at Leipzig/Halle Airport, in Germany.
According to the study, the B737-800s are “ intensively used,” each generally completing four flight segments daily – a higher number than most of its US-based airplanes. They operate from the early morning hours to late evening between seven cities.
One plane regularly makes a morning Cologne-Milan round trip followed by a Cologne-Madrid, roundtrip that same day. The other is often dispatched on Leipzig-Barcelona-Rome-Paris-Leipzig trips.
“Amazon Air’s budding intra-Europe network, like its North American network, has a decentralized orientation and involves widely dispersed airports. No airport having regular flights is within 300 miles (483 kilometres) of another,” the study observed.
“Amazon generally has four daily flights serving Cologne, compared to just two daily at Leipzig and its five other European airports. The new network is skeletal, confined entirely to Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. The network does not overlap with Amazon’s semi-regular transatlantic service between the US and Amsterdam and, significantly, does not yet encompass the Benelux countries, the UK,and the Republic of Ireland.”
It added: “Although the Leipzig flights give Amazon access to the Visegrad Group states, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, Amazon will need to expand if the network is to come close to matching the broad geographic coverage of the US network.
“We expect that both Cologne, a hub for UPS and Leipzig, a hub for DHL, will emerge as bona-fide hubs for Amazon Air, with the latter seeming poised for more rapid development, over the next year. A third plane leased to ASL will likely take to the skies soon, and we expect the network’s growth to be an important development over the next year.”
Earlier this week, ASL confirmed that it is taking up 10 options for the B737-800 converted freighter. This follows the original agreement with Boeing for 10 firm orders and 10 options, announced at the Paris Air Show in June 2019.
However, the company has not revealed who among its customers the cargo capacity is earmarked for.
Source: Lloyd´s
