And DroneUp, the Walmart drone delivery partner that cut jobs last week, said it has made 110,000 deliveries, including 6,000 just last month. Alphabet’s Wing, perhaps the only drone firm that can rival Prime Air’s corporate backing, told FLYING it has made more than 330,000. But if the rest of the industry is taking its time, Amazon is moving at a snail’s pace.Ĭurrently, Zipline is the industry’s front-runner with 600,000 completed deliveries as of May. The drone delivery industry was expected to move slowly-and so far it has. Now we know exactly how Prime Air has fared: Five months into 2023, it has completed 100 deliveries, or about 1 percent of its goal of 10,000 deliveries this year. But soon after, Prime Air was hit with layoffs, and early reports implied less-than-stellar returns in Lockeford and College Station. Still, Amazon soldiered on, launching its two services a month later. The drone’s 80-pound weight also places it outside the purview of the FAA’s Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems rule, muddying the regulatory waters further. The decision reportedly came as a surprise-according to Prime Air employees, the firm had put up dozens of staffers in hotels in Pendleton, Oregon, home to one of its main test sites, with plans to move them to Lockeford and College Station last summer.Īccording to the FAA, Amazon did not demonstrate that the MK27-2-its latest drone model, a hexagonal design with six propellers and an onboard sense-and-avoid system-could safely operate near people. Those restrictions were cemented in November after the FAA rejected several of Amazon’s petitions to ease them. But those approvals come with major restrictions-in Amazon’s case, they include the ability to fly at night, over people and roads, or beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of a ground observer. Perhaps the largest is the regulatory hurdles it faces.Īmazon, one of five drone firms to receive FAA Part 135 air carrier certification, would appear to be in a good spot.
#AMAZON DRONE DELIVERY ISSUES DRIVERS#
There are a few potential drivers for the business’ struggles. But so far, Amazon has failed to capitalize on that market, too.Īmazon did not immediately respond to FLYING‘s request for comment. In Lockeford, a town of about 4,000, Prime Air employees said Amazon’s drones serve only two households, each less than a mile from the firm’s local delivery hub.Ĭollege Station, which has a population closer to 120,000, may provide more opportunities. Now, that projection appears to be in peril. Per internal company projections, the firm in January was targeting 10,000 deliveries by the end of 2023.
Last week, the e-commerce giant told CNBC that its Prime Air drone delivery service-which currently serves a smattering of households in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas-has completed just 100 deliveries since launching in late December. The realtors, for example, wouldn’t need to fly above 200 feet to get a great shot of a house," Misener says as he explained proposed the concept of layered airspace to address this issue.Amazon’s drone delivery dream isn’t dead, but it may be time for the firm to reassess its strategy. For others, it might be aerial photography.
And then below 200 feet, that would be limited to certain operations. "Between 200 and 400 feet would be a transit zone, where drones could fly fairly quickly, horizontally. Between 400 and 500 feet there’d be a no-fly zone-a safety buffer," he said. "We were thinking: Manned aircraft above 500 feet. Drone SystemsĪpart from regulatory challenges, certain hypothetical scenarios have come to light that bring attention to the safety and efficiency of drone use for commercial deliveries.įor instance, with Amazon and other retail behemoths looking into drones to make deliveries, urban airspace will now be saturated with buzzing drones. So all of this might take some time, and it might not be held back by technical limitations, but governmental ones. Realistically, it has to contend with FAA approvals for commercial use in the US and Civil Aviation Authority in the UK. These seem like reasonable assertions however, Misener still has yet to give details on when their drone delivery system will be deployed. It turns out that the vast majority of the things we sell at Amazon weigh less than five pounds." These things will weigh about 55 pounds each, but they’ll be able to deliver parcels that weigh up to five pounds. "The goals we’ve set for ourselves are: The range has to be over 10 miles. "So Prime Air is a future delivery service that will get packages to customers within 30 minutes of them ordering it online at ," Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy told Yahoo News.
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