Amazon started building its $1.5 billion airport, with Jeff Bezos taking the controls of a front loader to begin the work

Jeff Bezos kicked off work at Amazon’s new $1.5 billion airport development near Cincinnati on Tuesday.

Bezos, who reportedly made a surprise appearance at the opening, hopped aboard a front loader to lift the first pile of dirt. “If you’re wondering, that’s fun,” the Amazon CEO said after stepping down from the machinery.

Amazon agreed to a 50-year lease for more than 900 acres of property from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 2017. This space is close to the size of the global hubs of top cargo airlines, according to the Associated Press.

Amazon plans to take greater control of its shipping process and become less reliant on carriers such as UPS, FedEx, or the US Postal Service as it seeks to cut costs and speed up delivery times. This will be especially pertinent to its plans of one-day shipping for Prime members.

“This hub is going to let us get packages to customers faster, and that’s a big deal,” Bezos said, according to Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV. “We’re going to move Prime from two day to one day, and this hub is a big part of that.”

The development is expected to open in 2021 and bring 2,000 jobs to the airport.

 

This article was originally published in: https://www.businessinsider.com/

Image: @JeffBezos Twitter account (tweet + video).

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.
You need to agree with the terms to proceed

Latest Posts

Share Now

Menu