wjcandee wrote:

So back to fleet stuff, and this one's a whopper.

There has been talk over the past week or so on APC about rumors among Atlas station managers that "as many as 9 of their best" Amazon-dry-leased 767-300s were going to be operated instead by ATI, pursuant to the termination-for-convenience clause in the Atlas CMI contract; that Amazon is putting its foot down. That didn't seem possible on its face, insofar as ATI will have absorbed 6 additional newly-acquired 767-300 freighters in 2019, so adding another 9 in short order would seem to be setting ATI up to be unable to properly-staff such flying. But it didn't escape me that such a transfer wouldn't necessarily have to happen overnight, that sister-company ABX Air has and/or will have some extra pilot availability once the Aeromex contract is terminated, etc. And I noticed that the regular anti-ABX posts on APC have all-but-disappeared the last week or so -- could ABX be seriously negotiating with its pilots to get its house in order so it could in short order take on some more Amazon flying? (Would 1224, which represents both ABX and Atlas pilots, allow such a thing?) Still...

But then N1049A flew to ILN on Friday night under an Atlas 9xxx flight number, coming in from AFW, to where it also had flown on a 9xxx flight number. I figured that that most likely had something to do with GTI starting to fly out of ILN in the next week or two (and Amazon starting to fly stuff out of AFW in the future), that Atlas crews might want to work with an actual aircraft at the new sort location to make the start up go smoothly. Or it could be a maintenance visit, as AMES at ILN has worked on some Atlas 767 aircraft, although Flightstar at VQQ currently has been doing basically all their 767 work recently. (AMES at ILN has worked on some Atlas-operated aircraft.) Or it could be a visit to ILN for ATI conformity, since that's where ATI does it. But still... Really? It seems beyond-the-beyond even to mention it.

But then there are rumors floating around Kalitta that something "big" and "hush-hush" is happening there very soon. Again, most likely just a coincidence in time, but...

And now tonight, there's a post on APC to the effect that N1049A and N1439A are in conformity to transfer to ATI. 1439 just finished a regular flight to TPA 3 hours ago, so that certainly puts the boot to that rumor if it is considered in its entirety, but 1049A is exactly the frame that has been at ILN, which is where ATI does conformity, for 5 days. You wouldn't see any transfers at the FAA web site, because Amazon is the dry-lessor of the frame and an Atlas subsidiary is still going to be the owner/lessor, it would just be the CMI agreement regarding that frame that would be amended. And given that Amazon can't have a bunch of aircraft out of service simultaneously, it could be that 1049A is the first and 1439A will follow. And only two Amazon-leased aircraft are presently in HMVs -- a 762 at ATI and a 763 at Atlas -- so now would be a logical time to do it. But, still...

Of course, if Amazon is trying to pressure Atlas to get its house in order, starting the process on one frame to show that you are serious, and then scheduling a second to show that you're not bluffing, would be a pretty-good way to make your point.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere, or if 1049A just loads up in a couple of days and moves out on an Amazon ILN mission under a GTI callsign. I think that it is most likely that folks are putting pieces together and coming up with unlikely extrapolations, but we shall see...

And all of this will absolutely exclude ABX Air. ABX is not getting any more additional aircraft or routes from Amazon.

Actually, they already have a good deal more work from Amazon. They don't need new planes to significantly step up the tempo of their operation, which is what has happened. Also, they are using more than 6 planes simultaneously to operate the work Amazon has given them, and they have a few extras lying around without anything to do.

Fleet Addition: N397AZ, formerly N354AA, flew to TPA today (9/27/19) from ILN. Presumably it is going into service, having been in conformity at ILN since returning from paint at CWF on 8/19/19, which is about the typical amount of time. (With the other AMES facility being in TPA, it is always possible that it is going there for more work, but that is not typical.) This tail is starting its life as a freighter with only about 19,000 cycles on her, but north of 115,000 hours, reflecting the type of service she saw at AA. It will be interesting to see how she does over the next decade or so, given the higher-than-normal starting hours.

wjcandee wrote:

Fleet Addition: N397AZ, formerly N354AA, flew to TPA today (9/27/19) from ILN.

Leased to Amazon on September 26.

One "quiet" addition to the Amazon work is N395CM. As you probably know, it filled in for the "Aloha Cargo"-liveried NAC aircraft, N399CM, which runs LAX-HNL and which was in maintenance at ILN for just-short of two months. Because NAC doesn't have ETOPS yet, and has its hands full staffing the two MIA-based 767-300s that it also leases from CAM, 399CM is for now operated by ATI. I'm sure this was initially-intended to be a shorter assignment than it has been, but ATI has been operating this tail back and forth to Hawaii daily since 11/6/17, so almost 2 years. When it came time for a C-check, N395CM (an ATI military/spare aircraft) stepped in.

Now that N399CM came out of maintenance several days ago, 395CM returned to ILN and immediately went into Amazon service. It is intended as a spare but it is interesting that after 2 months going back and forth to HNL it didn't sit six seconds before being put up on Amazon. Kind of like a "quiet" addition while more Amazon aircraft are coming onboard before Peak.

wjcandee wrote:

One "quiet" addition to the Amazon work is N395CM. As you probably know, it filled in for the "Aloha Cargo"-liveried NAC aircraft, N399CM, which runs LAX-HNL and which was in maintenance at ILN for just-short of two months. Because NAC doesn't have ETOPS yet, and has its hands full staffing the two MIA-based 767-300s that it also leases from CAM, 399CM is for now operated by ATI. I'm sure this was initially-intended to be a shorter assignment than it has been, but ATI has been operating this tail back and forth to Hawaii daily since 11/6/17, so almost 2 years. When it came time for a C-check, N395CM (an ATI military/spare aircraft) stepped in.

Now that N399CM came out of maintenance several days ago, 395CM returned to ILN and immediately went into Amazon service. It is intended as a spare but it is interesting that after 2 months going back and forth to HNL it didn't sit six seconds before being put up on Amazon. Kind of like a "quiet" addition while more Amazon aircraft are coming onboard before Peak.

When 399 came on we were told that it would only be at ATI for six months or so, until NAC has their ETOPS certification sorted out. We can see how that’s played out. I flew 395 a handful of times on AMZ routes while I was there so it was always an option, as

I’m sure you know, but it’s interesting to read between the lines and get a sense of the urgency AMZ has fo lift. Between boosting ABX and ATI schedules plus extra lift, there seems to be no slowdown at all. The last schedule I flew at ATI was the first bid we had that AMZ drastically increased the schedule and it was MUCH busier than we were used to. It certainly seems that there won’t be any letup anytime soon.

https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/am ... lt/563768/

Seed stage customs clearing software startup acquired by Amazon.

Just as an update, ever since Amazon started its One-Day Prime shipping initiative, the carrier mix in my area has changed a bit. While I still get most of my Amazon deliveries via Amazon Logistics with some deliveries via USPS, I am getting UPS more than I used to. Some local One-Day Prime deliveries are being shipped via UPS Ground, and once I got a UPS Next Day Air shipment from Robbinsville, New Jersey. To my surprise though I have not gotten any Amazon deliveries via OnTrac ever since they started the One-Day Prime shipping. I'm guessing Amazon probably put OnTrac at the bottom of the list of carrier priority in my ZIP code. I actually wonder if the PHX8 Sortation Center is overloaded that some packages have to be offloaded to UPS. PHX8 serves most of Arizona and parts of New Mexico including Albuquerque.

I just ordered some Nautica loafers, and apparently based on tracking they flew out of BWI. Amazon Air doesn't fly BWI-PHX, so I wonder what routing could these take. Amazon says they should be delivered tomorrow.

1337Delta764 wrote:

I just ordered some Nautica loafers, and apparently based on tracking they flew out of BWI. Amazon Air doesn't fly BWI-PHX, so I wonder what routing could these take. Amazon says they should be delivered tomorrow.

Replying to my previous post, I just looked at the tracking again, and it looks like it is taking a BWI-ILN-PHX route. The ILN-PHX flight is early in the morning, so my package will probably be delivered on time.

1337Delta764 wrote:

1337Delta764 wrote:

I just ordered some Nautica loafers, and apparently based on tracking they flew out of BWI. Amazon Air doesn't fly BWI-PHX, so I wonder what routing could these take. Amazon says they should be delivered tomorrow.

Replying to my previous post, I just looked at the tracking again, and it looks like it is taking a BWI-ILN-PHX route. The ILN-PHX flight is early in the morning, so my package will probably be delivered on time.

Yep, flight should arrive around 2:30am local time. Enjoy your new shoes!!

N761CX (an ATI-operated, Amazon-dry-leased 762) has been at AFW for almost a week now. I think it's a fair bet, with that amount of out-of-service time, that it isn't there just so folks at the new AFW Amazon facility can practice on it. I'm guessing, then, that it may be getting worked on or painted, which seems a little odd, since this would be a first for an AFW contractor. (Or maybe it flew there and broke, but that's probably the least-likely scenario.) OTOH, AMES seems to be exceptionally-busy these days, to the point that they have sent now 8 ABX-operated aircraft to HAECO at GSO for C-checks in the last 18 months (out of 18 total c-checks on ABX aircraft), and sent one of the recent 767-300 conversions to paint at Landlocked Aviation in CWF. So maybe they are trying new things...

And it looks like N740AX, which isn't an Amazon dry-lease, but is used by ABX quite often on Amazon work, is now getting a much-needed coat of paint at ROW.

It will be interesting to see whether they do the full ABX livery on the tail or just paint the tail all-white. 740 has been looking pretty-ratty since around the time that the rudder was replaced with a pure-white panel in late 2016, which didn't very-elegantly complete the stylized A on the tail. Kind of worked but kind of didn't. And after 4.5 months in rehab at ILN from January through May of this year, she emerged with a giant green swatch of new sheet-metal on her aft right side. This eliminated the cystic-acne-like cluster of doublers and more back there, but the amount of green certainly called attention to her.

"That's a lot of new sheet metal. How old is that plane?"

"Um, well, it's the oldest 767 still in service; it's the 6th one ever built."

But she runs reliably-enough and still has about 7000 cycles left and only about 90K hours on her, meaning many more years to go, so now it appears that they're gonna make her pretty again.

And now the saga of N1439A, which was identified as the second aircraft that would move from Atlas to ATI (the first being N1049A). 1049 is in conformity at ILN, since 9/6. That takes about 5 weeks, so it should be done soon, then perhaps to move expeditiously into service with ATI.

But 1439 is another story. My understanding is that it would move to ILN for conformity in late September (like the 22nd or something). It didn't do that. Instead, it flew for Atlas for a day or so after the 22nd, then went to VQQ. I thought maybe that was a kind of exit interview. It only stayed at VQQ like a day, then flew to RFD on 9/25. There it has been for 8 days now.

ILN certainly has its hands full these days, with contract work for Delta (a 767 c-check), Amerijet (a 767 c-check) and UPS (2 tails in for the Rockwell Collins LFDS upgrade, which UPS wants done ricky-tick), plus 4 767-300s in for conformity and maintenance (392UP, 830WE, 1049A, and 360CM). So 762CX is getting its C-check at AMES's TPA facility, and several ABX 767-200s have been sent to HAECO at GSO for C-checks in the last 18 months (8 out of 18 ABX HMVs, at last count). And ATSG has been going outside its normal vendor list for painting as well, with 2 aircraft so far going to Landlocked Aviation in CWF.

So maybe 1439 is waiting for its turn in conformity at ILN (but of course no reason not to park it there -- there's plenty of room). So why RFD? Is it waiting for some kind of unexpected decision to be made (i.e. which carrier to place it with, all of a sudden)? Or...and this is what seems extreme: could it be being worked on at AAR's new facility there? Would ATSG run conformity on a frame using a vendor other than AMES? That's certainly not the norm. But there is a lot of work to do in a compressed time frame, and the in-house provider is apparently already well-committed, so maybe AAR stepped up with availability on short notice. I guess we will just see. It was interesting to me, anyway.

And for those of us keeping track, there were 8 separate ABX-operated frames in the air at essentially the same time for Amazon tonight. The dry-leased 6, plus two ABX frames. A significant amount of additional business for ABX, which is apparently handling it well in terms of performance stats.

So N761CX is back in the air. It flew from DFW to AFW 9 days ago, and flew back to DFW tonight, then did a normal run to ABE. I'm not really sure what one could do to the aircraft in 9 days that it would need. I suppose paint, but that's pretty fast and not at a normal ATI vendor. 9 days seems like an awfully long time to take an aircraft out of service to practice loading and unloading at a new location. I am mystified, but I I would bet that one of our members has the answer.

761’s stay in AFW was indeed scheduled for 10 days from the outset. An ops manager there mentioned they have several hundred people employed at AFW already, although I can’t say for sure how many of those needed airplane training.

ATI today (10/9) just put into service as a spare/general-purpose aircraft the 767-300BDSF that CAM had leased to Air Incheon in early 2018 and which was returned to CAM like 16 months later. Its first flight was to SEA and ANC for Amazon, but it's not an Amazon dry-lease. Now renumbered as N360CM.

She didn't go out to a paint shop, so a more-rudimentary approach to removing the Air Incheon livery was doubtless performed at ILN. Will be interesting to see what she looks like. No photos seem to be up yet.

N392UP was signed over to UPS yesterday.

MO11 wrote:

N392UP was signed over to UPS yesterday.

Thanks!! And flown to SDF. Awesome!

Looks like PDX-PHX is gone. I had two one-day packages shipped from PDX9 (Troutdale, OR) this summer. I wonder if Amazon is now using UPS Next Day Air for this FC or temporarily eliminated the One-Day option. It appears the only overnight Amazon Air route to PHX I know of is ILN-PHX. It appears CVG-PHX still operates during the daytime, which limits One-Day capability.

1337Delta764 wrote:

Looks like PDX-PHX is gone. I had two one-day packages shipped from PDX9 (Troutdale, OR) this summer. I wonder if Amazon is now using UPS Next Day Air for this FC or temporarily eliminated the One-Day option. It appears the only overnight Amazon Air route to PHX I know of is ILN-PHX. It appears CVG-PHX still operates during the daytime, which limits One-Day capability.

Looks like it still operates every night.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/GTI3510

CallmeJB wrote:

1337Delta764 wrote:

Looks like PDX-PHX is gone. I had two one-day packages shipped from PDX9 (Troutdale, OR) this summer. I wonder if Amazon is now using UPS Next Day Air for this FC or temporarily eliminated the One-Day option. It appears the only overnight Amazon Air route to PHX I know of is ILN-PHX. It appears CVG-PHX still operates during the daytime, which limits One-Day capability.

Looks like it still operates every night.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/GTI3510

Okay, I must have missed it since Atlas is operating it. ATI is operating CVG/ILN-PHX for Amazon. It appears there is also an early morning Atlas CVG-PHX flight, but I'm not sure if this is Amazon Air or not.

1337Delta764 wrote:

It appears there is also an early morning Atlas CVG-PHX flight, but I'm not sure if this is Amazon Air or not.

You are correct to wonder. GTI505 is for DHL.

I was just shipped a package from Jacksonville to NYC, and it went by UPS overnight. (And was late because UPS said it missed their cutoff for Next Day Air for Friday delivery, so I will get it no Friday as promised, not Saturday, not Sunday, but Monday. Not so great to be using UPS when they won't upgrade to Sat delivery in a service-failure situation. I'm gonna complain to Amazon about that. Could have come by FedEx Ground and arrived Saturday -- but there's no more FedEx Ground for Amazon.)

wjcandee wrote:

1337Delta764 wrote:

It appears there is also an early morning Atlas CVG-PHX flight, but I'm not sure if this is Amazon Air or not.

You are correct to wonder. GTI505 is for DHL.

I was just shipped a package from Jacksonville to NYC, and it went by UPS overnight. (And was late because UPS said it missed their cutoff for Next Day Air for Friday delivery, so I will get it no Friday as promised, not Saturday, not Sunday, but Monday. Not so great to be using UPS when they won't upgrade to Sat delivery in a service-failure situation. I'm gonna complain to Amazon about that. Could have come by FedEx Ground and arrived Saturday -- but there's no more FedEx Ground for Amazon.)

So far I have gotten UPS Next Day Air once since the one-day initiative started, from EWR4 in Robbinsville , NJ. However. I have been getting occasionally UPS Ground from the local fulfillment centers (so far from PHX6 and PHX7). I haven't not yet got OnTrac once ever since the one-day shipping initiative started (I know they were at one point the #2 carrier behind AMZL in the West Valley of the Phoenix metropolitan area). Still occasionally get USPS (recently twice in a row from SNA4 in Rialto, CA).

wjcandee wrote:

And it looks like N740AX, which isn't an Amazon dry-lease, but is used by ABX quite often on Amazon work, is now getting a much-needed coat of paint at ROW.

It will be interesting to see whether they do the full ABX livery on the tail or just paint the tail all-white. 740 has been looking pretty-ratty since around the time that the rudder was replaced with a pure-white panel in late 2016, which didn't very-elegantly complete the stylized A on the tail. Kind of worked but kind of didn't. And after 4.5 months in rehab at ILN from January through May of this year, she emerged with a giant green swatch of new sheet-metal on her aft right side. This eliminated the cystic-acne-like cluster of doublers and more back there, but the amount of green certainly called attention to her.

"That's a lot of new sheet metal. How old is that plane?"

"Um, well, it's the oldest 767 still in service; it's the 6th one ever built."

But she runs reliably-enough and still has about 7000 cycles left and only about 90K hours on her, meaning many more years to go, so now it appears that they're gonna make her pretty again.

N740AX arrived back to CVG in ABX Air (2012) livery. Only N744AX remains in the original 2004 ABX Air livery.

Lately I have been getting a lot of shipments via USPS, and it appears Amazon might have temporarily disabled Same-Day Delivery for my ZIP code. I wonder if there is a shortage of AMZL drivers in my area, particularly for the holiday season.

Off topic but I was updating my work EFB before my trip this evening and it appears that United will be utilizing AMES at ILN for 767 heavy checks. I’m not sure what kind of schedule or when it starts, but it brought a smile to my face. I’d welcome the chance to fly into ILN again!

Acey559 wrote:

Off topic but I was updating my work EFB before my trip this evening and it appears that United will be utilizing AMES at ILN for 767 heavy checks. I’m not sure what kind of schedule or when it starts, but it brought a smile to my face. I’d welcome the chance to fly into ILN again!

AMES is really becoming a center of excellence for 767 heavy maintenance. It's also interesting to see that, like DL, AMES is taking in paying outside work that requires its expertise, while sending out stuff that doesn't. (So, for example, ABX has sent 8 of its last 18 HMVs to GSO, rather than doing them at ILN.) DL has a ship there now for an HMV, and when you think about how many private owners are sending their ships there (Blavatnik, Patriots, etc.), it's a real endorsement. Nice to know about UA! (Could also be that they're installing a display system? I don't know what solution UA uses, if any specific one.)

At our location in Western Washington I would estimate almost all packages are coming via USPS, with the exception of a larger appliance. Amazon did not give them accurate directions (their map showed a delivery in salt water), but I had been following the delivery schedule map on Amazon and waved down the truck with a mystified driver.

The second UPS-leased, CAM-owned ship, this one an ex-ANA Cargo BCF, is done with paint at CWF and will be on its way back to iLN today. (N327CM, to be N394UP.)

wjcandee wrote:

Acey559 wrote:

Off topic but I was updating my work EFB before my trip this evening and it appears that United will be utilizing AMES at ILN for 767 heavy checks. I’m not sure what kind of schedule or when it starts, but it brought a smile to my face. I’d welcome the chance to fly into ILN again!

AMES is really becoming a center of excellence for 767 heavy maintenance. It's also interesting to see that, like DL, AMES is taking in paying outside work that requires its expertise, while sending out stuff that doesn't. (So, for example, ABX has sent 8 of its last 18 HMVs to GSO, rather than doing them at ILN.) DL has a ship there now for an HMV, and when you think about how many private owners are sending their ships there (Blavatnik, Patriots, etc.), it's a real endorsement. Nice to know about UA! (Could also be that they're installing a display system? I don't know what solution UA uses, if any specific one.)

We have the original EFIS flight deck in all our planes save for the 767-400s, of course. To my knowledge there is no plan to update them so I think it’s a “simple” HMV. But we’ll see soon!

Looks like TUS2 in Tucson is officially open for Business. TUS2 is the first Amazon Robotics Sortable fulfillment center in Arizona; in fact, it seems like it took the same amount of time from fulfillment center to delivery station (including the stop at PHX8) as a shipment from PHX6 (a legacy Sortable fulfillment center) would have.

N1049A and N1439A were transferred over to ATI yesterday.

Thanks, MO11! I was thinking that they should be just about done with conformity. Do we know who helped do the conformity on N1439A in RFD? N1049A was done in ILN, but I wondered how they were doing it on 1439 at RFD, perhaps at AAR?

N419AZ ought to be ready to go pretty-soon as well.

On more of a CAM note, I notice that 391UP has been in paint in ROW for two weeks and 2 days. Dean Baldwin is usually pretty-exact about turning a 767 in 14 calendar days, so it's interesting that it's still there. Just an observation, but if it goes more than a few more days, it would be unusual. Landlocked Aviation at CWF had 327CM/394UP stripped and painted in 14 days, and 392UP was done at GUS (also by Dean Baldwin) in 12 days.

N1049A, still dry-leased to Amazon by AAWW but no longer flown by Atlas, made its first revenue flight on the ATI certificate early this morning ILN-AFW. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N10 ... /KILN/KAFW

ATI's fleet of 767-300s is much-more-standardized in the cockpit than the Atlas fleet was, given the onesie-twosie nature of AAWW's assemblage of feedstock for conversion. It will be interesting to see whether ATI insists on the lessor installing the IS&S FPDS solution in the cockpit of the aircraft that come over, as it has (or will) on all its CAM-owned 767s.

As we have noted, two more aircraft should be coming to ATI shortly: N1439A, formerly flown by Atlas, and N419A, a new conversion that is painted and likely almost finished with conformity.

And ATI is flying the heck out of N360CM on Amazon work. It came back to CAM after a year-ish lease to Air Incheon, and was promptly put on the ATI certificate. It didn't go for new paint, though; AMES just did a quickie coverup job over some of the Air Incheon livery. For some reason, they didn't paint over the gold stuff. As I said earlier, it's hideous and fabulous at the same time, but we didn't have an official A.net photo until recently:



If nothing else, it could use a wash...

The growth of ATI has been amazing, and with relative labor harmony. They are now operating 24 767s, with two more in the next 30 days, plus 8 757s (4 757 freighters and 4 757 combis), for a total of 32 operational aircraft, going to 34 aircraft in a few weeks. (ABX, in contrast, is currently at 22 aircraft, with one likely retiring in the next year as it hits its LOV. However, with an experienced pilot corps, ABX would be a decent choice for a customer looking for a high-reliability operator for a few aircraft, which it could handle.)

ABX's Amazon-dry-leased N795AX is now in ROW for paint.

She didn't look bad from a distance but up close she was starting to look ratty. Presumably will be getting the same "updated" ABX livery that the rest of their fleet has been getting. With another 4 years on her lease, and maybe as much as 7, one could imagine putting a Prime Air livery on these aircraft, but that doesn't seem to be the plan. 750AX, another Amazon dry-lease, came back earlier this year with the updated ABX livery.

wjcandee wrote:

ABX's Amazon-dry-leased N795AX is now in ROW for paint.

She didn't look bad from a distance but up close she was starting to look ratty. Presumably will be getting the same "updated" ABX livery that the rest of their fleet has been getting. With another 4 years on her lease, and maybe as much as 7, one could imagine putting a Prime Air livery on these aircraft, but that doesn't seem to be the plan. 750AX, another Amazon dry-lease, came back earlier this year with the updated ABX livery.

With the lease extensions and increased op tempos on the 762 fleet, do you think we'll see any Prime Air 762 paintjobs for either ABX or ATI?

I enjoyed your shockingly low utilization figures for the ABX 762 in the 767 thread, but now that ABX and Amazon are finally playing nice (er) and are getting more flying will we see those figures increase? I was thinking over 1000 cycles and 2400 hours/year new rates

Spacepope: I think they made a decision at some point pretty-early-on to leave the -200s in operator livery. Don't know why. Probably had to do with the shorter lease, but maybe something else as well.

I also agree that you could figure a 50-percent increase in cycles on the ABX-operated dry-leased ones over the next year (744, 749, 750, 768, 774, 795). Maybe the same for hours. These are very rough numbers, of course.

These are actually substantial-increases over what most express operators' aircraft see outside of Peak. Example: ABX is running a 767-300 for UPS ex-SDF, currently to MEM. The aircraft (like a lot of UPS/FedEx/DHL aircraft) flies 5 nights a week, and does a single turn every night. Out to SDF, back to MEM. Sit. Repeat the next day. SDF-MEM is a 45-minute flight. Not a lot of use.

In contrast, on Monday, N744AX (operated by ABX) flew ILN-BWI-RIV-BWI-STL-ONT, segments of :56, 5:16, 4:02, 2:17 and 3:50 respectively. That's a little more than usual, it's not going to do that every day, and it benefited from the extra 3 hours East Coast to West Coast, but you get the idea.

Does anyone have the current count of aircraft in Amazon's fleet? Or point me to where I can find it?

jay3cf wrote:

Does anyone have the current count of aircraft in Amazon's fleet? Or point me to where I can find it?

If you mean the ones they are actually dry-leasing, and not counting the airline-owned-or-leased planes that are used as spares and for other duty:

Operated by Atlas: 17 767-300s. N1217A, which was a hull loss, may have been replaced with a dry-lease. N663GT came aboard to maintain the total fleet number of operating aircraft (which included two Atlas aircraft that were used as operator spares), but I don't know if that or one of the Prime Air painted spare aircraft was actually dry-leased as a replacement for 1217A. Two that were dry-leased by Andromeda (an AAWW subsidiary) to Amazon are still on the same dry-lease, but are now on (1049A) or in conformity to be on (1439A) the ATI certificate.

Operated by ABX: 6 767-200s. ABX is currently using slack in its fleet to fly at least another aircraft's worth of Amazon routes, so there are sometimes 7 aircraft working on Amazon assignments at basically the same time at ABX Air.

Operated by ATI: 6 767-200s plus 13 767-300s now operating, plus 1439A (the Atlas transfer) in conformity and what will be 419AZ in post-conversion conformity. So two more about to be operating dry-leases, with another dry-lease arriving from conversion in November and likely in service before the end of the year. So 3 about-to-be-operating dry leases. ATI is also now flying two of its own aircraft, 360CM and 376AN, heavily on Amazon routes.

So at ATI 19 dry-leases to Amazon, plus 3 about-to-be-operating dry-leases, which will bring it to 22, plus two aircraft intended as operator spares current being flown hard

So 17 (maybe 18) plus 6 plus 19 (about to be 22). So 42 dry-leases about to be 45, and maybe 46 if AAWW dry-leases Amazon one of the 3 Atlas spares.

If you're thinking about the "fleet" as the overall fleet necessary to accomplish the missions smoothly, its 42 plus 2 plus 3 plus figure one more at ABX, so that's 48 767s with 3 more coming aboard in the next 2 months, which would bring it to 51.

Then, ugh, there are the 737-800s that someone at GECAS sold them on. Amazon has orders and options for something like 20, all to be operated by Southern Air. Five have been delivered, but it's public knowledge that Southern is having a hell of a time staffing them, and one is still parked at VQQ and not in service. So only 4 are operating, and the whole operation is a cluster. It has not expanded beyond various connections among RFD, PDX, TPA, IAH. Maybe Southern will get it right, and maybe Amazon will ultimately take the whole 20, whoever operates them, but don't hold your breath. The 767 operation was an unmitigated success from the get-go, and it has grown more-sophisticated by the month, runs well, and is supported by some very-talented people. The most-charitable thing I can say about the 737 operation is that it is experiencing some growing pains. If you want to count those 4 operating aircraft as part of the "fleet", knock yourself out. If you do, then it's about to be 55 aircraft, including me counting 6 spares, so 49 dry-leases.

In 2020, Amazon has committed to dry-lease 4 more newly-converted 767-300s from CAM, a subsidiary of ATI and ABX's parent, ATSG. CAM currently leases to Amazon all but 2 of the aircraft that are flown by or will be flown by ABX and ATI. (Those two are the 2 that came over to ATI from Atlas and are still leased from a subsidiary of Atlas's parent, AAWW.) So by the end of 2020, that 55 aircraft will rise to at least 59. And I personally think that it is likely that ATI will be asked to operate even more than the 4 currently-planned to be taken in 2020. Either more aircraft will flow over from Atlas and/or Amazon will take more of the constant flow of conversions that CAM is sending through IAI/Bedek in TLV. They currently have 3 additional aircraft in conversion in TLV, they have 3 recently-retired AA 767-300s in storage at ROW, and they have dibs on at least 18 soon-to-be-retired AA aircraft as AA takes them out of service. Some of those may end up going to ATSG subsidiary Omni Air International as passenger charter aircraft, as happened to N389AA, which CAM put through 4 months of refurbishment at MZJ, inside and out, and which looks fabulous and has been flying a heavy charter schedule (now 432AX). (Tidbit: all Omni tail numbers add up to 9 or a multiple of 9, and use the AX suffix, which ABX Air also still uses on some aircraft.)

wjcandee wrote:

And ATI is flying the heck out of N360CM on Amazon work. It came back to CAM after a year-ish lease to Air Incheon, and was promptly put on the ATI certificate. It didn't go for new paint, though; AMES just did a quickie coverup job over some of the Air Incheon livery. For some reason, they didn't paint over the gold stuff. As I said earlier, it's hideous and fabulous at the same time, but we didn't have an official A.net photo until recently:

If nothing else, it could use a wash...

The growth of ATI has been amazing, and with relative labor harmony. They are now operating 24 767s, with two more in the next 30 days, plus 8 757s (4 757 freighters and 4 757 combis), for a total of 32 operational aircraft, going to 34 aircraft in a few weeks. (ABX, in contrast, is currently at 22 aircraft, with one likely retiring in the next year as it hits its LOV. However, with an experienced pilot corps, ABX would be a decent choice for a customer looking for a high-reliability operator for a few aircraft, which it could handle.)

I’ve seen this bad boy taxing past my window a few times at BDL and it always makes me do a double take. Looks so out of place.

Or maybe I wish it was just another brown tail...

jetblueguy22 wrote:

I’ve seen this bad boy [N360CM] taxing past my window a few times at BDL and it always makes me do a double take. Looks so out of place.

Or maybe I wish it was just another brown tail...

I have decided that she's wearing a tramp stamp just above her butt.

wjcandee wrote:

jetblueguy22 wrote:

I’ve seen this bad boy [N360CM] taxing past my window a few times at BDL and it always makes me do a double take. Looks so out of place.

Or maybe I wish it was just another brown tail...

I have decided that she's wearing a tramp stamp just above her butt.

Thanks, now I’m going to laugh like an idiot at my desk and everyone is going to think I’m crazy as it taxis by!

jetblueguy22 wrote:

Thanks, now I’m going to laugh like an idiot at my desk and everyone is going to think I’m crazy as it taxis by!

Made my day!

Good Lord almighty that is a lot of planes. All added in 4 years or so??. Why is Southern having issues finding pilots?? Do you think that Amazon will hire an different airline to fly them ?? WN, SY, AS, etc??

Sunking: There had been rumors about Mesa flying some of the 737s currently operated by Southern, but it related to the handful of 737-400s that they are flying for DHL. For a while at least, it appears that AAWW's strategy was to pitch a lot of flying overboard at Atlas and Southern in order to get its staffing and reliability up for Amazon and the military, who are/were said to be unsatisfied. Atlas/Southern are having difficulty hiring and training enough pilots to handle all the flying they were selling. Apparently, attrition is substantial as some of their pilots move on to higher-paying jobs. Management until recently denied that they were having any difficulty finding and training enough pilots. Arguably, the Houston accident raised questions about the quality of the pilots that they recently have been hiring; we'll see what the NTSB report says about that. Was the accident FO a stellar pilot who just had an unexpected reaction to a startle, or does his background suggest otherwise? I have to believe that there are political sensitivities involved and that even the NTSB is going to tread exceptionally-lightly on this; the FO's family a while back did a big emotional media ruckus about him, doubtless to get ahead of the report and to attempt to influence its conclusions. I would not be surprised if the NTSB tries to dodge this issue, which would be disappointing but I just can't see a government agency, even this one, daring to state any negative conclusions about this guy, so I expect all they will do is recite his history as a pilot. Raising the pilot pool at both airlines is challenging for a couple of reasons, apparently: currently in contract negotiations with aggressive tactics by the union and minimal movement by the company, lots of drama in the ranks over the same; management's strategy apparently as been to ride it out in the short term with constrained growth or even reduction in business rather than commit to a significantly-more-expensive contract. Amazon and the military both sent pretty-clear messages several months ago that flying will decline unless Atlas gets its house in order; this was pooh-poohed at the time, but now Amazon has pulled two aircraft and sent them to ATI, which has good labor relations, a relatively-happy work environment, and the ability to draw sufficient pilots at the moment.

As to who else might be interested in flying the 737s, I can think of a few, but none who would for sure do it at a competitive price would highly-likely be able to do it at the reliability level necessary. But we will see how that plays out. Southern was a natural choice because they already had 737s on their roster and a preexisting relationship between their parent company and Amazon.

wjcandee Like I have said before this thread is one of the better ones. No B vs A fighting. So many folks post facts and not too much guessing. Strange how fast Amazon has gone from no planes and an experiment, to the fleet they have today.

You are so right, my friend. I can remember when the media was guessing about the little Project Aerosmith cross-dock operation at ILN. And I remember following NAC's little Project Alpha 737 running around in that test, which wasn't expanded.