Amazon is confident it can deliver your holiday packages in time. It's chartering its own ships and reportedly using half-empty trucks

An Amazon driver carrying packages.
Patrick T. FALLON / AFP

Amazon has spent $4 billion to combat shipping delays, according to a Bloomberg report.
Amazon chartered its own ships, built up Amazon Air, and hired 150,000 seasonal workers.
The retailer is one of many to take extra steps to move goods in time for holiday shopping season.

From chartering its own ships to building up its air cargo fleet and adding thousands of seasonal workers, Amazon has been operating in overdrive to make sure it can deliver goods in time for the holiday season.

Amazon has thrown about $4 billion into side-stepping major shipping delays, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The company has made some sacrifices to make sure goods arrive in time, including allowing trucks to leave for delivery only half full, according to Bloomberg. The move allows delivery drivers to make their delivery windows without having to wait for the entire truck to be fully packed — a process that could take longer due to the supply-chain disruptions, as well as the shortages of workers throughout the supply chain.

The company chartered bulk freighters usually reserved for hauling grain or iron and moved the goods from Asia to smaller ports in the US, including the Port of Houston and the Port of Everett in Washington state. The smaller ports allow the company to avoid backlogs at the nation's largest port that can add as much as two months to a shipment's delivery time.

The retailer has also worked to build up its air cargo fleets during the pandemic. Amazon Air, the company's fleet of 85 planes, can move inventory between 40 airports in the US, expediting the shipping process and allowing the goods to be delivered directly to the warehouses that are closest to their final destination without any stops in between.

Amazon has also made several efforts to combat the national labor shortage, which has left supply-chains moving a record number of goods with less workers than ever before. Earlier this fall, the retail giant hired 150,000 seasonal workers to work in their warehouses, compensating for the surge in consumer demand. In order to attract the workers in a tight labor market, Amazon boosted pay and offered signing bonuses as high as $3,000.

"At Amazon, preparation for the holiday season begins on January 1," the company said in a blog post. "From that moment on, our teams work hard to meet our customers' needs for the holidays ahead. We've hired even more people and invested in technology to help us better predict what products our customers will want—and where and when they'll want to receive them."

Amazon is one of many companies that has taken steps to avoid the supply-chain crisis. Several major corporations, including Walmart, Home Depot, Coca-Cola, and Ikea have pivoted to anything from chartering bulk freighters to flying in goods or using smaller ports, but Amazon has an advantage inasmuch as it has been building its transportation network for years.

Read Bloomberg's full story on its website.

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