Amazon opens $1.5bn air hub in Kentucky in push to make delivery ever-faster
The company is racing to catch up with large air delivery carriers like UPS and FedEx
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Your support makes all the difference.Amazon has officially opened its long-planned $1.5 billion air delivery hub in northern Kentucky, the latest worldwide real estate expansion in its quest to bring lighting-fast delivery to its more than 300 million customers.
The new hub, at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, opened on Wednesday, and has been in development for more than four years. It features aircraft parking and an 800,000 square foot robotic sorting center, where packages are prepared to be put on trucks and driven across the country. The more than 600 acre development can house up to 100 Amazon-branded planes and is projected to run an estimated 200 flights per day.
“This hub is going to let us get packages to customers faster,” Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos said at a groundbreaking in 2019. “That’s a big deal.”
The air transportation facility will be a key part in the expanding portfolio of Amazon air, the air cargo arm of the e-commerce giant that was launched in 2016.
Though still dwarfed by the likes of more established competitors like FedEx and UPS, which have more than 670 and 570 planes in their respective fleets, Amazon’s air arm is playing an increasingly important role in the company business. Amazon Air has more than 75 aircraft now, and flies about 160 flights a day out of more than 40 different airports on Amazon-branded planes operated by partners, though the company has also directly purchased some aircraft this year.
The company has another air hub in Germany, a 20,000 square meter facility at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany, which opened last winter.
The increased footprint of Amazon’s air freight wing may increase its carbon footprint, which rose roughly 20 per cent during 2020, according to the company. Amazon has pledged to be net-zero carbon across its business by 2040, and says its “carbon intensity,” a measure of Set goal for its shipments to be net carbon zero by 2030
Experts are divided on whether online shopping is better for the planet, with some arguing its emphasis on same-day speed and ordering specific sought after products individually is less efficient, while others argue that companies like Amazon can more efficiently deliver goods when bundled together than individual shoppers driving to a store.
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