Sun Country Airlines (SY, Minneapolis St. Paul International) has taken delivery of the first B737-800 freighter which will be deployed into service on behalf of Amazon.com, Cargo Facts has reported.

N547RL (msn 32348), an 18.6-year-old narrowbody previously operated in passenger configuration by Pegasus Airlines (PC, Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen) and owned by GECAS, was ferried after conversion from Shanghai Pudong via Phnom Penh, Saipan and Honolulu to Everett over the course of March 22-23, 2020, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows.

Sun Country Airlines is due to start cargo operations on behalf of Amazon later this year. The Minneapolis St. Paul International-based leisure specialist currently exclusively operates passenger aircraft, namely one B737-700 and thirty B737-800s. It also has a further two -800s sub-dry-leased from Transavia Airlines in storage at Minneapolis airport.

Sun Country plans to eventually operate ten B737-800(F)s for Amazon. It initially planned to launch these operations in April 2020.

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, there are currently 68 freighter aircraft around the world operated by five airlines on behalf of Amazon. While the bulk of this fleet are widebodies, Southern Air (Cincinnati International) operates six B737-800(F) on behalf of Amazon in the United States. In Europe, ASL Airlines Ireland (ABR, Dublin International) operates one B737-300(F) (wet-leased from Bluebird Nordic (Reykjavik Keflavik)) and eight B737-400(F)s (four in-house and two each wet-leased from CargoLogic Germany (GCL, Leipzig/Halle) and ASL Airlines France (5O, Paris CDG)).