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Alibaba taps Atlas Air for parcel airlift to South America

Eric Kulisch
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Atlas Air operates a large fleet of Boeing 747 freighters. Some of them will now provide dedicated transport to Alibaba. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is expanding its ability to serve the South American market with the November launch of an air charter network designed to speed up shipping times. For-hire cargo airline Atlas Air (NASDAQ: AAWW) said Monday night it will operate three weekly freighter flights to Brazil and Chile for Cainiao, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s logistics arm.

Customers in Brazil and Chile can expect to receive parcels from China in as soon as three days compared to one week now. Cainiao said it transported more than 8 million packages to South America in the third quarter — double the volume in the second quarter — underscoring a global trend of the coronavirus pandemic accelerating interest in online shopping.

Atlas Air will use Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft to support Cainiao, spokeswoman Debbie Coffey said.

“At Cainiao, we continue to invest in our network to support Alibaba merchants operating over 100,000 online shops,” said William Xiong, chief strategist and general manager of export logistics. “Our partnership with Atlas Air will help us establish an efficient, reliable network to South America and other worldwide destinations by significantly reducing airfreight delivery time for the merchants we support.”


Cainiao has said it plans to build out its international supply chain and launch direct routes to major markets around the world. It expects to operate about 1,300 chartered flights by the end of 2020.

Alibaba owns about two-thirds of Cainiao after funneling $3.3 billion into the operation in November. 

Alibaba’s online shopping mall and logistics platform rivals that of Amazon, which controls its own private airline with the help of contract carriers, has a dedicated trucking network and acts as the ocean transport consolidator. Its digital platforms resulted in about 51 billion parcel deliveries last year.

The e-commerce powerhouse operates in more than 190 countries and has plans to serve 2 billion customers by 2036.


Click here for more American Shipper/FreightWaves stories by Eric Kulisch.

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Eric Kulisch

Eric is the Supply Chain and Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves. An award-winning business journalist with extensive experience covering the logistics sector, Eric spent nearly two years as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Automotive News, where he focused on regulatory and policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles, mobility, fuel economy and safety. He has won two regional Gold Medals and a Silver Medal from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for government and trade coverage, and news analysis. He was voted best for feature writing and commentary in the Trade/Newsletter category by the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was runner up for News Journalist and Supply Chain Journalist of the Year in the Seahorse Freight Association's 2024 journalism award competition. In December 2022, Eric was voted runner up for Air Cargo Journalist. He won the group's Environmental Journalist of the Year award in 2014 and was the 2013 Supply Chain Journalist of the Year. As associate editor at American Shipper Magazine for more than a decade, he wrote about trade, freight transportation and supply chains. He has appeared on Marketplace, ABC News and National Public Radio to talk about logistics issues in the news. Eric is based in Vancouver, Washington. He can be reached for comments and tips at ekulisch@freightwaves.com