Thelife- Hawaiian Airlines announced a deal with Amazon on Friday to use converted Airbus A330-300F freighter jets.
- The carrier will operate on behalf of Amazon to transport cargo, joining other operators like Sun Country Airlines.
Amazon is expanding its cargo service with its biggest aircraft yet.
On Friday, Hawaiian Airlines announced a deal with Amazon to lease and maintain 10 Airbus A330-300F cargo jets to fly on behalf of the e-commerce giant. The carrier beat out five other bidders, though the amount of the contract was not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The new contract will complement Hawaiian's current cargo operation that transports freight on its passenger flights, as well as its existing A330 passenger fleet.
According to Hawaiian, which was the first commercial operator to fly scheduled US air cargo in 1942, it will start flying for Amazon in fall 2023.
In the meantime, the carrier said it will establish a pilot base on the US mainland, expand its current maintenance bases, as well as hire more employees, like mechanics, pilots, and dispatchers, to support the operation.
"We are excited to help serve Amazon customers by providing additional air cargo capacity and logistics support," Hawaiian president and CEO Peter Ingram said in a press release. "This recognizes our experience in providing safe and reliable operations, our incredible front-line team, and our shared focus on the customer."
The operation will be the first time an Airbus has flown for Amazon. Mostly Boeing jets, including the 767-300ER and Boeing 737-800 freighters, have been the jet of choice for partners like Atlas Air and Sun Country Airlines.
According to Airbus, all 10 A330s, which are bigger than the Boeing 767s, will be converted from passenger service to cargo jets.
Sun Country and Silver Airways are the only other passenger airlines to fly cargo on behalf of Amazon; they use Boeing 737-800BCF and ATR 72-500F converted freighters, respectively. The e-commerce company contracts all of its flying to third parties and has amassed over 100 planes since its start in 2015, according to the WSJ.
Sun Country was contracted in December 2019, just before the pandemic ignited a huge uptick in demand for e-commerce and cargo.
Travel analyst and president of Atmosphere Research Group, Henry Harteveldt, told Insider in 2020 that the airline's move was a "stroke of genius."
As a smaller airline, the pandemic could have been the nail in Sun Country's coffin, but the Amazon contract saved it.
Hawaiian is also looking at the deal as a way to boost its business, with Ingram saying the partnership will give the company a "unique opportunity to diversify our revenue sources while capitalizing on our established strengths."