Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Web
  3. News

Amazon’s new cargo plane is clear to land

Trevor Mogg
By
With its “Prime Air” branding, Amazon’s new aircraft may at first glance be considered as an unnecessarily extravagant redesign of its identically named delivery drone. But it’s not. Instead, it’s the company’s most striking statement yet of its bold ambition to take full control of its entire delivery operation.

It was toward the end of last year that we first heard the e-commerce giant was operating several cargo planes out of a facility in Ohio as part of a trial to see if it could handle such a huge logistical undertaking. Seems like it can.

Recommended Videos

With “Prime Air” emblazoned on the sides, “Amazon” painted on the belly, and its “smile” logo on the tail, the company’s first-ever branded cargo plane – a Boeing 767-300 aircraft – will take to the skies for the first time on Friday, performing a flyover for aviation fans attending the Seafair Air Show in the company’s home city of Seattle.

Related
amazon cargo plane
Amazon
Amazon

The new plane, operated by Amazon’s air cargo providers Atlas Air and ATSG, will join 11 others currently criss-crossing the U.S. for the web giant. Another 30 are set to join the fleet over time, enabling the company to rely less heavily on partners such as FedEx and UPS, and reducing costs in the process.

“Creating an air transportation network is expanding our capacity to ensure great delivery speeds for our Prime members for years to come,” Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said in a release.

The company has recently been ramping up efforts to get packages delivered to its customers in super-quick time. Besides its cargo planes, it also has a network of 4,000 Amazon-branded trailers transporting packages between warehouses and sorting canters. And for “last mile” deliveries it recently launched an Uber-style system to get more delivery drivers on the road, while couriers in some parts of the country use subway trains and bicycles to deliver goods.

Of course, it’s still investing much time and money in the development of its Prime Air delivery drone, though it’ll need a green light from the Federal Aviation Administration before that particular part of its fast-expanding logistics strategy becomes a reality.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Amazon Halo View launches alongside new nutrition and fitness features
Cycler riding while wearing the Amazon Halo View.

As a part of the Amazon fall event hosted by the tech giant earlier today, Amazon has announced the new Halo View.

The new iteration of Amazon's wearable fitness tracker features a plethora of upgrades, namely an integrated AMOLED touchscreen that shows the user tracking features such as heart rate, intensive workout tracking, and time. The Halo View will also monitor sleep tracking and blood oxygen levels, as well as show notifications on the screen. It also has waterproofing for optimized fitness use, but despite all these new features it's not technically a replacement of the Halo Band, since the Band will still be sold by Amazon.

Read more
Amazon’s New World gets a last-minute delay following beta
Two players fighting each other in New World

New World, Amazon’s upcoming MMO, has been delayed until September 28. This is the game's fourth delay, as Amazon had originally pushed it to August 31. The developers explained that the reason for the delay is to incorporate player feedback from the beta.

On Twitter, the official New World account posted about the positive reception the beta had. The social media account claimed that over one million players tried out the beta, accumulating over 25 million hours of playtime. Because of the player feedback that the developers received, they have decided to push the release date of New World to the end of September. The developers apologize for the continued delay but want to assure players that they are focused on the "highest quality game possible at launch."

Read more
Amazon’s New World is reportedly bricking RTX 3090 cards
new world bricks computers shattered obelisk

Players reported that Amazon's massively multiplayer game New World is bricking their gaming PCs. The issue seems to be tied to EVGA RTX 3090 graphics cards, according to users who have experienced the problem. However, even players that are using just an RTX 3090 have reported that their computers are overheating and consuming an enormous amount of CPU power.

When someone refers to "bricking" a device, they could be using it in one of two ways. Many people use the term "bricking" when a device can no longer function at the moment or crashes when trying to perform a task or run an application. Usually, with this definition, the user will need to reboot the device. The true definition of "bricking" is when a device is completely destroyed and becomes no longer usable. Unfortunately, it seems that the latter is happening more in terms of the New World beta players.

Read more