HomeTop StoriesInside Amazon's first delivery station in Alaska

Inside Amazon’s first delivery station in Alaska

Nov. 23 – With the streets of Anchorage largely empty on an early November morning, dozens of workers at the new Amazon delivery station used small devices on their fingers to scan barcodes on packages. Details appeared on smartphones on their forearms, helping them organize the flow of shipments.

Amazon Air’s daily cargo plane to Anchorage had arrived from Seattle the night before, and soon more than 15,000 boxes and envelopes would land on doorsteps in Southcentral Alaska.

Just outside, drivers began filling vans with packages.

“Five minutes!” shouted Mitchell Cox, who leads the delivery teams, letting a new wave of drivers know they would soon be free.

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, opened its first delivery station in Alaska a year ago. It came long after the company opened nearly 500 other delivery stations across the US

But this one is unusual, company representatives say.

The country gets its products from air deliveries, unlike delivery stations in the Lower 48 that get their packages from semi-trucks.

How exactly the facility will change Alaska’s economy remains to be seen. Of course, an expanded Amazon presence could mean continued pressure on brick-and-mortar retail, which has struggled for years with surging e-commerce, an Alaska economist said.

One thing is certain: Amazon package delivery is growing in the state.

The delivery station marked its three millionth package delivery last month, station manager Austin Empey said.

“And it’s getting busier, especially now that the holidays are just around the corner,” he said as the boxes slid down the conveyor belts and heavy metal blared from the speakers.

14 packages annually for everyone

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In a first, Amazon Air plans to soon fly two large cargo planes a day to Anchorage to bring holiday packages and speed up delivery.

The jets will help the delivery station transport about 20,000 packages per day for several weeks during the holidays, Empey said.

On normal days, the company delivers about 15,000 packages daily from Girdwood to around Big Lake, a region that includes Anchorage, Wasilla and the state’s urban heart.

That’s an average of about 14 packages per year for every person in the region, including newborns.

The company usually doesn’t know what’s in it. But electronics, dog food, beauty products and bottled water are typically shipped through Amazon facilities, said Matthew Gardea, an Amazon spokesman who showed journalists around the station.

Some large shipments are obvious, Empey said.

“I’ve seen snowblowers and snowplows, and during the summer I saw more kayaks,” he said.

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