A few months ago, Amazon decided to invest billions in the purchase of cargo planes to transport its goods directly. Today, with declining global demand, the American online sales giant offers its air carrier services, in particular to its competitors.
Remember. In the midst of a pandemic and while online sales sites were breaking records, Amazon had decided to invest massively in air transport and in its fleet of aircraft. The American company had thus decided to acquire (and no longer renting) Boeings and Airbuses for transport faster and better items sold on its website.
No more sub-processing to traditional transport companies, Prime Air had to enable Amazon to meet the growing demands of its customers. For the first time, in January 2021the American firm had bought 11 jumbo jets. Today, Prime Air has a fleet of 97 devices. According to specialists, in the next few years, the size of its fleet should reach 200 aircraft. The American company should thus exceed, in transport capacity, the giant of the logistics FedEx.
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Falling revenues and rising costs
However, the acquisition, maintenance and operation of these devices are expensive for Amazon. Just to create one of the transport hubs necessary for the take-offs and landings of the company’s planes near Amazon warehouses, 1.5 billion dollars have been invested by the company on a single site. And the return to normal of its economic activity (after the increase in demand during the pandemic), does not yet allow the total purchases made by the commercial giant to be profitable.
For example, the revenue figure for online sales in 2022 is lower than that of 2021 by $52 billion. Finding other sources of financing is therefore relatively important for Amazon. Especially since the latter has already signed a contract to buy 10 new Airbus A330-300 freighters. So, to cope with rising costs and falling revenues, Amazon has recently offered space on some of its charter flights to other companies. Who knows, in the future, your purchase made on any site, may have been transported by Amazon.
Source : economictimes.com
