Airlines

Amazon spends $131 million to take minority stake in air cargo contractor ATSG

Shares in ATSG closed up 5.5% on Monday. Amazon shares fell 1.6%.

Amazon has owned warrants in ATSG since 2016. It was granted warrants as part of an agreement to lease 20 Boeing 767s from ATSG, one of its earliest deals with a cargo company to build out its burgeoning air fleet. Amazon also owns warrants to buy a minority stake in rival carrier Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings.

Amazon’s air fleet, launched in 2016, is a critical part of its push to provide one- and two-day delivery. The company still relies on ATSG and Atlas Air to fly a large portion of its packages, but it has started to bring some air cargo operations in house, lending further credence to the belief that Amazon Air could one day rival FedEx and UPS.

In a first for the company, Amazon in January purchased 11 used Boeing 767-300 jets from Delta and WestJet. The company is scheduled to lift the veil later this year on its $1.5 billion air hub in northern Kentucky, which has capacity for 100 Amazon-branded planes and is expected to handle about 200 flights per day.

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