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The world's largest online retailer Amazon is well on the way to becoming one of the largest corporations in logistics too.
The competitors of the online department store are no longer exclusively other retail companies.
Rather, the three globally dominant express services United Parcel Service (UPS), Federal Express (Fedex) and the subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL have long seen Amazon as a rival.
Fedex was the first to react, not signing any new contracts with the online mail order company and letting the cooperation expire.
Amazon has turned from partner to rival, it says there.
At UPS, the world's number one parcel shipper, things look different.
There, the business with Amazon accounts for ten percent of sales and is considered indispensable.
Now Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is taking another remarkable step towards becoming a serious and competitive logistics company.
For the first time, the online retailer is buying its own aircraft and is no longer relying solely on the rental of cargo planes as it was before.
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The Seattle-based company is buying eleven Boeing 767-300s for its cargo airline Amazon Air.
Four of these planes come from the Canadian airline Westjet and seven from Delta Airlines.
The new price of the fleet is around two billion dollars (1.63 billion euros).
However, there is no information on the purchase price of the used machines.
However, Amazon is likely to have used the current tense situation at the airlines.
After all, due to the consequences of the corona pandemic, the majority of the airlines' flight connections are no longer available and hundreds of aircraft are unused on the ground.
After converting the passenger planes to cargo planes, Amazon Air plans to start operating some of them this year and the rest by the end of 2022 at the latest.
The new jets are also flown and operated by third-party pilots and service companies.
The company does not use its own staff for this.
Likewise, there are no plans so far to offer freight capacities to other shippers.
Change of strategy at Amazon
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Logistics experts still see a change in strategy behind this.
Amazon is bringing about a radical change in logistics: the online retailer is increasingly moving from a department store with ordered but purchased transport services to a provider with its own shipping service at all levels - right up to delivery to the customer's doorstep.
The reason for the expansion is "to improve the business and to meet customer requirements", said the vice president of Amazon Global Air, Sarah Rhoads.
Above all, this relates to customers of the Prime subscription service, which promises delivery within 24 hours.
In order to meet these times, more and more aircraft and air freight transports are required.
“Amazon wants to master all processes in the supply chain and secure sufficient capacity,” says management consultant Horst Manner-Romberg.
It is precisely on this point that the company is reacting to a recent experience from the corona pandemic.
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Freight space in air traffic has become a bottleneck in recent months, and the prices for air freight have in some cases multiplied on some connections.
The reason for the shortage: Around half of global air freight volumes are transported in cargo holds in passenger planes.
But these machines are now staying on the ground in large numbers because of the low demand for passenger flights.
"So far, those senders who have their own fleet of aircraft have come through the crisis best," says Manner-Romberg.
Those who, on the other hand, have to buy transport capacities on the so-called spot market will be asked to pay.
Amazon's reaction to buying the Boeing machines fits this picture.
The goal is obvious: At the end of this development, customers should rate or experience Amazon as the online shop with the fastest and most reliable parcel delivery and therefore remain loyal to the group.
Fast delivery is a success factor
The operators of online shops have long known that positive experiences with quick deliveries contribute significantly to triggering further orders and, above all, to reducing the number of returns.
The shorter the time interval between the online order and the delivery, the higher the rate of actual purchases and not of returned goods.
Amazon is already the world's fourth largest transport company when it comes to its own aircraft fleet.
Only DHL with around 260 aircraft, UPS with 276 planes and Fedex with around 400 cargo planes have an even larger fleet.
The online retailer's growth in the field is tremendous.
After all, the group started the airline Amazon Air only four years ago with ten planes.
With the latest acquisitions, there will soon be at least around 90 transport aircraft.
Industry experts even know statements that the company wants to have around 200 cargo planes by the end of 2023.
Most of them will still come from large leasing companies such as Atlas Air, Air Transport Services, the General Electric subsidiary Gecas or ASL in Europe.
This expansion is also clearly visible in Germany.
Amazon has just built a 20,000 square meter hall in the south of Leipzig / Halle Airport - according to its own information, it is the Group's first regional air freight center in Europe.
There, the employees sort parcels and load or unload trucks and airplanes.
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There are currently two rented Boeing 737-800s stationed in Leipzig.
These cargo planes with the design and logo of Amazon will initially fly to European airports twice a day.
In addition, three cargo planes are in use from the airport in Cologne / Bonn - all of them former Ryanair planes.
However, Amazon's expansion plans have other dimensions in the USA.
A logistics facility for the online retailer is currently being built at Cincinnati International Airport in the state of Ohio, with investments of 1.5 billion dollars.
When the facility is ready by the end of this year, 100 aircraft will only be able to be accommodated in that part of the airport.