Prime Air's 2024 Peak Season
Nothing we didn't kind of know already, but putting the data out there regardless in case it's of use to anyone
After checking on Amazon’s flight counts after Winter Storm Blair, I thought it might be useful to go back and look at peak season 2024 from this perspective. Thanks to Kylie Smith for tabulating these numbers for me.
In terms of the key airports that Amazon flies out of, there were five that saw more than 750 Prime Air takeoffs between October-December 2024: KCVG (3014), KAFW (1322), KSBD (862), KILN (862), and KLAL (768). These unsurprisingly correspond to Prime Air’s major national and regional hubs. A second tier of busy airports includes KBWI (626), KRFD (603), KONT (595), and KSEA (581), the only airports that saw more than 500 takeoffs during this time. From what I can tell, Amazon runs its own operation at all of these air gateways, except for KSEA and possibly KONT, where it uses third-party services. At most smaller air gateways, it uses 3PLs.
The total flight counts by day were a bit surprising in that I was expecting a greater jump in number, given that package volume during peak is very often 1.5 times what it typically is. That increased load is noticeable in the flight counts, but not quite to the same degree.
Two observations: 1) I would have guessed that Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days (October 8-9) would have generated a bigger spike than they did, but it’s really only in mid-November that you see Prime Air regularly having 200+ flight takeoffs per day. 2) The big dips on Thanksgiving and Christmas make enough sense, but what about those dips around November 7th and 14th? It’s a pretty strange time for Amazon’s air activity to dip so low at two separate times. From what I hear, they may be related to regular flight network updates that Amazon conducts to optimize its air network. That’s just a guess, but those are some pretty big non-holiday-related dips!