No more FedEx air shipments for Amazon after this month

FedEx is dropping a contract for air shipment of packages for Amazon within the United States, reducing its ties with the online retail giant that is already expanding its own delivery business.

FedEx said Friday that it will not renew the contract for domestic FedEx Express handling of Amazon shipments when the deal expires June 30.

Spokeswoman Katie Wassmer called it “a strategic decision” that will let FedEx focus on thousands of other retailers including Target, Walgreens and Walmart.

In a statement, Amazon said only that it respected FedEx’s decision and thanked the delivery company for serving Amazon customers over the years.

Amazon.com Inc. is emerging as a potentially formidable challenger to FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. Amazon has been expanding its fleet of planes, building package-sorting hubs at two airports, and launching a program that lets contractors start a business delivering packages in vans bearing the Amazon smile logo.

With a decadeslong head start in delivering packages, FedEx and UPS have highly developed global networks. Amazon, however, is more than three times their size by revenue and was sitting on about $22 billion in cash at the start of 2018.