The big picture: The e-commerce giant is also opening new facilities at Chicago Rockford International Airport, Fort Worth Alliance Airport and Wilmington Air Park this year, we're told, and will be followed by the main Air Hub at the Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Airport in 2021.

Amazon on Tuesday announced a partnership with GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) to add 15 additional Boeing 737-800 cargo aircraft to its growing fleet of package movers. They'll fly in the US out of Amazon's more than 20 air gateways in the Amazon Air network, the company said.

By 2021, Amazon will have a total of 70 aircraft in its Air portfolio.

Dave Clark, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations at Amazon, said the new aircraft will create additional capacity for Amazon Air and help the company expand its Prime one-day shipping service.

Amazon earlier this year announced plans to make its Prime shipping perk one-day by default. It's a strategy that could have a devastating effect on local convenience and drug stores, much like Amazon's main business had on traditional brick and mortar retailers.

Amazon's Air operation is already capable of transporting hundreds of thousands of packages each day and capacity is only going to grow moving forward.

The news comes just one week after FedEx announced it wouldn't be renewing its domestic delivery contract with Amazon to transport packages via FedEx Express.