Amazon keeps buying pricey jets after promising a drone fleet

An Amazon Prime Air jet coming in for landing in Baltimore. If it wasn’t clear before, Amazon’s decision to purchase planes indicates the company’s long-term commitment to operating its fleet. — AP

Amazon.com Inc is opening warehouses and shipping hubs in the US at the rate of about one every 24 hours. The ultimate aim is to ensure that virtually every product the company sells is a van ride – and eventually a drone flight – away from customers’ homes. And yet, last week Amazon announced it was buying 11 Boeing 767-300 jets for its air-cargo division, mostly to get products to Prime subscribers.

Despite creating algorithms to anticipate shoppers’ needs and opening all those warehouses, Amazon can’t meet its one- and two-day shipping pledge to customers without an ever-expanding fleet of pricey jets. That reality has become clearer since the pandemic fueled a surge in online shopping that has strained the resources of United Parcel Service Inc, FedEx Corp and the US Postal Service – forcing Amazon to pick up the slack.