Amazon Prime Air has this week announced the inauguration of commercial operations with their first Airbus A330-300 Freighter.
This is the first unit of 10 to be flying on a commercial basis, following an order announcement made last year by the company.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
Amazon Prime Air Begins Airbus A330 Operations…
The first commercial flight happened on October 2 between San Bernadino and Cincinnati, two airports that have been utilized by Amazon Prime Air to initially train crew on.
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As per data from RadarBox, N4621K, the first Airbus A330-300 freighter in the Amazon Prime Air fleet departed San Bernadino at 2357 local time on October 2.
The aircraft then landed into Cincinnati at 0643 local time the next day. At the time of writing (1440 UK time @ 03/10/23), the aircraft hasn’t yet departed.
In their press release from this week, the company had this to say:
“Just under a year ago, Amazon announced it was adding 10 Airbus A330s to its global aircraft fleet. These A330s aren’t just the first of their kind in our fleet.”
“They’ll also be the newest, largest aircraft for Amazon Air, allowing us to transport more customer packages with each flight.”
“The Amazon Air Hub teams have been training on the new aircraft, and October 2 marked the first in-service flight for this exciting new addition.”
“Keep an eye on the skies for even more A330s delivering for Amazon customers in the coming months and years.”
As for N4621K, it is a five year old airframe that was originally bound for Hong Kong Airlines but was never taken up by the carrier, as per data from Planespotters.net.
From there, the aircraft was stored in April 2022 and was stored in Tarbes and Shanghai until July 2023, when it was handed over to Altavair AirFinance and then Hawaiian Airlines, of which both companies are operating the aircraft on their behalf.
Overall, this is a major milestone for Amazon Prime Air as they continue to grow in volume in a very competitive e-commerce and cargo market.
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