As Maersk Expands Air Cargo to LAX, Amazon Flies Biggest Aircraft Yet

A.P. Moller-Maersk is bringing its air cargo division to the U.S. West Coast as Amazon takes flight with 10 new aircraft.

The Danish container shipping giant has inaugurated a new 130,000-square-foot-air freight import/export gateway near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), complementing the two other North American air cargo gateways in Atlanta and Chicago the company opened in the past 12 months.

“Our new Los Angeles air hub positions Maersk for years of growth. L.A. is a self-managed air facility that has tripled our access to capacity on the U.S. West Coast,” said John Wetherell, regional head of air freight, North America at Maersk in a statement. “Our customers will benefit from higher service levels and greater warehouse capacity.”

The new facility is 15 miles from LAX and less than nine miles from the Port of Long Beach. Staff will available to conduct customs brokerage, commercial sales and freight operations such as less-than-containerload (LCL) transload.

According to Maersk, the air hub will offer immediate unit load device (ULD) transfers to move cargo from one aircraft to another.

This site is a U.S. Customs-bonded Container Freight Station (CFS) and a U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Certified Cargo Screening Facility (CCSF), which mean that the facility offers timely and secure air freight handling.

The facility is scheduled to attain Free Trade Zone status in 2024 to benefit from lower duties, reduced processing fees and faster movement of goods.

The opening of the Los Angeles facility is the latest step in Maersk’s North American air freight capacity expansion program to better align with customer demand. The new capacity allows for more supply chain integration opportunities and better scaling to manage seasonal peaks as well as market-driven volume spikes for breakout product launches, Maersk said.

As a top five U.S. air cargo airport, LAX handled 2.75 million tons of airborne freight in 2022, 7.5 percent less than the previous year.

Maersk’s U.S. expansion aligns with a shift in air strategy for Amazon. On Monday, the e-commerce giant held its first in-service flight for the A330 aircraft from its air hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG).

Amazon ordered the global aircraft fleet of 10 Airbus A330s last year before converting them from passenger to cargo jets. They’re the largest aircraft for Amazon Air and its first freighter conversions to operate in the U.S., allowing the company to transport more customer packages with each flight.

Amazon expects to deliver more A330s “in the coming months and years.”

The planes are being leased by Altavair, an aircraft leasing company, and are operated by Hawaiian Airlines—although the aircraft have Prime Air branding. The agreement with Hawaiian will last for eight years with options to extend for up to three years.

The investments from Amazon and Maersk comes despite a challenging year for air cargo. In August, air cargo demand grew for the first time since February 2022, rising 1.5 percent to 20.7 billion cargo ton-kilometers (CTKs), according to International Air Transport Association (IATA) data. This metric is 1.3 percent lower than where it was in 2019.

Amid the lower consumer demand, Amazon Air will close its air freight facility at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle International Airport by the end of the year.

“We’re always evaluating our network to make sure it fits our business needs and to improve the experience for our customers,” a company spokesperson told Sourcing Journal.

The shuttering of the facility, which Amazon opened in November 2020, represents another pullback after the company expanded to meet pandemic-era e-commerce demand.

Affected employees will be offered roles in other facilities.

The hub was handling several flights per week operated by Ireland-based contractor ASL Airlines using Boeing 737-800 converted freighters.

Earlier this year, Amazon changes some routes and flight frequencies in Europe to cut costs in line with the slowdown. ASL Aviation terminated 28 pilots in July after Amazon reduced its flight requirements in Europe.

The decision to shutter the air hub won’t impact customer deliveries in the region, the company said.

Instead, Amazon is opening a new fulfillment center outside Bremen, Germany in August. It’s planning to open another fulfillment center and a sortation center in Germany as well.