The air cargo market continues to boom, and Amazon is expanding its Amazon Air network to smaller airports with ATR jets. The first of them, with the Prime Air colors, was recently recorded in a photo shared on social networks.
Hadn’t seen this little guy before! We fly ATRs now?? #aviation #ATR72 #pilot #airlinepilot @amazon pic.twitter.com/BTsgMolX79
— @miami_rick ✈️???????? (@miami_rick) October 23, 2021
According to what was reported by our partner site AEROIN in JuneCompany sources already pointed to the use of the popular turboprop to reach smaller airports and continue to offer the short delivery times that have made the retail giant triumph. Now the first aircraft is ready and it has been confirmed to be an ATR 72-500 converted from passenger to cargo.
The aircraft was seen at Amazon’s operations center at the Fort Worth Alliance airport in the greater Dallas, Texas, was manufactured in 2009 and delivered to the British company Aurigny Air Services.
Since then, it flew for the company transporting passengers, until it was withdrawn from service shortly before the pandemic and was stored until July of this year, when it was converted in the United States, according to the PlaneSpotters website.
Despite being aircraft in the service of Amazon, they are operated by Silver Airways, a Florida regional airline that has several ATR 42 and 72 models, all of them passenger.
The routes that Amazon will cover with the ATRs, nor when the turboprop operations will begin, have not yet been announced. Until then, Prime Air only operates Boeing 737F and 767F aircraft.
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