The first Amazon’s ‘Prime Air’ plane

Amazon is delivering enough packages throughout the United States that it is beginning to require its own airplanes. Now we understand exactly what they look like.

At a media occasion Thursday, Aug. 4, in Seattle, Amazon took the covers off its very first “Prime Air” branded airplane, a Boeing 767 owned by Atlas Air that has actually been transformed into a truck. Amazon announced deals with two airplane leasing companies– Atlas, and another called Air Transport Services Group, or ATSG– earlier this year to fly as lots of as 40 devoted cargo aircrafts over the next two years. Eleven are currently in operation; this is the first one that’s been painted.

The concept is to supply Amazon adequate shipping capability for peak periods and flexibility for normal operations as its Prime business rises, Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Operations Dave Clark informed.

“You can practically consider the difference in between commercial flight and private flight,” Clark stated. “We have the capability, with our own planes, to create connections in between one point and another point that are exactly tailored to our needs, and exactly tailored to the timing of when we wish to put bundles on those paths– versus other individuals’ networks which are optimized to run their entire network. We include capacity, we add flexibility, and it gives us cost-control ability as well.”

As one example, Clark stated the flights will be helpful for east coast-west coast runs for specific specialized stock and imports. Amazon can use the airplanes for both deliveries to clients and to move products between its centers.