Amazon drew up a backup plan, Project Aurelian, for delivering without USPS while contract talks with the Postal Service stalled last year, according to an internal document reviewed by Eugene Kim at Business Insider. The two sides reached a deal in April, but Amazon now wants its own network to cover roughly 39,400 ZIP codes by 2029, up from 23,700 today, so that each addressable ZIP code has Amazon plus at least one outside carrier. Getting there means 165 new delivery stations from 2027 to 2029, paying local businesses to deliver in rural areas, and dropping its 50-package-a-day minimum for serving a ZIP code, though Amazon says the projections are preliminary.
