Can Amazon Deliver?

M

mikecweb

Well-Known Member
http://canamazondeliver.com/


Lots of expansion needed but where are the pilots going to come from?
The union representing the US contract carriers for Amazon put out this website today highlighting some of the potential headwinds facing Prime Air.
 
With first year take home of less than 50k after per diem and a second year around 60, again after per diem... to fly a whale everywhere in the world. I can't see why anyone would apply. The 76 for Amazon is an even more abysmal rate.
 
Deliver my packages biatch. :D Where is my rubber dog poop?

Yes it's cold and miserable here. Ugh. Is this rotation over?
 
z987k said:
With first year take home of less than 50k after per diem and a second year around 60, again after per diem... to fly a whale everywhere in the world. I can't see why anyone would apply. The 76 for Amazon is an even more abysmal rate.
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And yet, here you are.
 
Amazon continues to hemorrhage money with their shipping operations.

There are a couple or reasons for this.

The main reason is that shipping is not free. Nobody gives Amazon free shipping. In fact no shipper (UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL) gives anyone free shipping.

On the other hand, Amazon insists on providing its customers free shipping. That is free shipping that Amazon must pay for. Amazon simply does not charge enough to cover the costs of the shipping and they lose money on many of the items they send out when you factor in the shipping and distribution costs. Amazon started this free shipping business model and now they have an absolute mess on their hands.

While, Amazon can possibly get more efficient with shipping and save 2-3%, they simply can not eliminate shipping as a real cost expense. Logistics has a cost. It is not free. It will always be there.

Amazon also has a distribution center network that is designed to be speed up delivery to the customer, but that speed comes with a price and Amazon is currently having cost issues with that part of the business. They are having a difficult time getting their hands around this. Rather than locate a few large distribution centers in locations centered to the US population (like Texas), Amazon has chosen to open many smaller distribution centers all over the United States They did this in order to get closer to their customer and be able to offer one or two day delivery.

Amazon raised their minimum order for "free shipping" to $49. They did this because they are trying to stop the red ink in the shipping area and encourage people to join Amazon Prime which gives free two day shipping with no minimum order.

This caused Amazon's customers to change their buying habits. In order to be eligible for free shipping, Amazon customers will wait to purchase something until they get an order of $49 or more that will quality for free shipping. This often involves purchasing multiple products one order.

The problem comes in when an Amazon distribution center does not have all of the products in one center. The order then must be shipped from multiple distribution centers. This doubles or triples Amazon's cost of shipping. This continues the cycle of red ink.

On the other hand, a Prime member has free shipping. We don't care about Amazon's costs. We don't have any incentive to be efficient. So this customer will order something anytime he needs it. For example my daughter needed a book for school the other day. Amazon had the book for $3.99 with free 2 day shipping because I am a prime member. The book came yesterday. It was shipped across the country and was delivered by the post office. My guess is that Amazon's shipping cost on this item was over $2. So that means that Amazon lost money selling this book to me. Multiply that by millions of small orders and you can see the problem as Amazon continues to lose money on shipping.

The distribution cost issue is much easier to solve than the shipping issue so I would expect Amazon will be able to solve this part of the puzzle first.

As for the pilots not getting paid enough, you all know how I feel about this. Pilots should be well paid for the job they perform. We are not to be discounted because someone can't run their business properly.
 
z987k said:
With first year take home of less than 50k after per diem and a second year around 60, again after per diem... to fly a whale everywhere in the world. I can't see why anyone would apply. The 76 for Amazon is an even more abysmal rate.
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Can you show your math? I might be under paid but I am not that under paid and have no idea how you are coming up with those number.
 
JOEFRIDAY2 said:
My guess is that Amazon's shipping cost on this item was over $2. So that means that Amazon lost money selling this book to me.
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Remember, though, you pay $99/year to be a Prime member. So unless you order more than 50 times per year, they haven't lost money on you yet.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
Apparently it's not a new thing. I've flown with a few former guardian pilots that have put the 6 figure king air myth to bed...at least not unless you worked literally every day.
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With a base salary of 78.3, it took 40 days of OT for the year, about 3 a month, to do 100k. 435/day 15 days a month. 535 anything over that, and $50-100 for duty days over 12 hours. Nothing fuzzy about it.

I was quite misinformed on how CRT works here and how often you actually are at min guarantee for the month.

Gonzo said:
Can you show your math? I might be under paid but I am not that under paid and have no idea how you are coming up with those number.
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Shoot me your email address and I'll be happy to forward you pay stubs. I even have VX days from this spring and a tiny bit of hostile.
 
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@z987k how many months of min 50 hours did you have first year how many months of 62 have you had so far into your 2nd year? I know they like to kill the 747 guys with R1 but I would find it hard to believe you are more months at min than above it.
 
Gonzo said:
@z987k how many months of min 50 hours did you have first year how many months of 62 have you had so far into your 2nd year? I know they like to kill the 747 guys with R1 but I would find it hard to believe you are more months at min than above it.
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For me, one class ahead I think I had two months of 50 hours and two months of 62. The 50s were waiting for OE, the 62s were when I conflict bid training.

Otherwise every month I've been well above MMG.
 
Gonzo said:
@z987k how many months of min 50 hours did you have first year how many months of 62 have you had so far into your 2nd year? I know they like to kill the 747 guys with R1 but I would find it hard to believe you are more months at min than above it.
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2 months at 50 hours, 2 months so far at 62 as well.
 
Hear is the rub, Amazon uses tech to move stuff, not a lot of employees. Can't wait till they have to deal with the biggest cog on the wheel, people, as in professional pilots, all the SF, we love our people BS will go out the window and good old economics will come out. It will be fun to watch...
 
SFLAX said:
Hear is the rub, Amazon uses tech to move stuff, not a lot of employees. Can't wait till they have to deal with the biggest cog on the wheel, people, as in professional pilots, all the SF, we love our people BS will go out the window and good old economics will come out. It will be fun to watch...
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You don't know anything about amazon or bezos-ebub if you think they have SF, we love our people BS even now.
 
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