With a view to improving the speed of deliveries and giving its customers more time to place orders, e-commerce major Amazon has launched Amazon Air with two aircraft that it leased from QuikJet Cargo Airlines.
The aircraft will crisscross Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, taking shipments from the respective cities.
QuikJet will take care of the operations and maintenance of the flights for Amazon.
With a capacity of 20,000 shipments in a flight, the fleet is expected to increase delivery times, allowing Amazon’s customers to place orders late in the day.
“We are not going to distinguish between the consignments by value to take them on the aircraft. The idea is to give them more time to place their orders,” said Akhil Saxena, Vice-President (Customer Fulfilment-Asia-Pacific, Middle-East and North Africa).
Flexibility
He said the company had little flexibility when it used third-party commercial airlines for the shipment of the consignments.
“It depends on their departure times. There are multiple airlines but we don’t have the flexibility,” he told businessline after launching the aircraft. “Now that we have our own aircraft, we have flexibility. Besides, we also have full visibility of the shipments,” Saxena said.
“We are the first e-commerce company in India to partner with a third-party air carrier to provide a dedicated cargo network,” he said. “The launch of the service will help about 1.1 million sellers in the country.”
Globally, the US-based company connects 70 destinations with 110 aircraft in different countries.
Telangana IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao was present at the flight induction programme held at GMR Aero Technic near the GMR Hyderabad International Airport Shamshabad.
“The service will help onboard more sellers from Telangana and the rest of India on Amazon’s global e-commerce platform,” Rama Rao said.