Work commences on Amazon’s Cincinnati air freight hub

Amazon broke ground on the construction of its new $1.5 billion air freight hub near Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on Tuesday.

CEO Jeff Bezos has boasted that the hub, measuring 2.6 million square feet, will create 2,000 jobs and allow the company to cut Prime delivery times in the US from two days to one.

In the first phase of the project, expected to be completed by 2021, the hub will comprise of 800,000 square feet of sorting facilities and 24 aircraft parking spaces. 32 aircraft will operate from the airport, making 64 flights a day.

It will then expand to its full size, with 76 parking spaces, by 2026.

In recent years, Amazon has been expanding its aircraft fleet to make it less dependent on couriers such as FedEx and UPS, and with emerging ambitions to become competitive within the sector.

However, pilots of Amazon Prime’s fleet – operated by Atlas Air – have complained that they are being overworked due to a pilot shortage and strained schedules, with apprehension about the coming rate of expansion.

Source: Market Watch, The Loadstar