Amazon.com Inc. is planning to construct a new centralized air hub in Kentucky that will support cargo planes for its Prime Air delivery service.

The facility, at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, will focus on loading, unloading and sorting packages for 16 Prime Air cargo planes currently in operation, Amazon said Jan. 31. The aircraft form part of the 40 planes that Amazon agreed to lease from two carriers in 2016.

The air hub is expected to hire more than 2,000 workers, adding to Amazon's more than 10,000 employees in its 11 warehouses across Kentucky. The e-commerce giant earlier unveiled plans to create more than 100,000 jobs in the U.S. within 18 months.

Amazon will invest $1.49 billion to build the air hub on a 900-acre tract of land within the airport, Bloomberg News reported Jan. 31.