Your Amazon packages are one step closer to coming airmail — by drones
Amazon is one step closer to widespread drone delivery after federal authorities green-lit its fleet of Prime Air drones for commercial use.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Monday it cleared Amazon Prime Air as an “air carrier,” allowing the online retail giant to begin a trial run of its commercial drone delivery program, Bloomberg and other media outlets reported.
“On August 29, the FAA issued Amazon Prime Air a Part 135 air carrier certificate using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS),” the FAA said in a statement provided to Geek Wire. “Amazon Prime Air’s concept uses autonomous UAS to safely and efficiently deliver packages to customers.”
The FAA also said it “supports innovation that is beneficial to the public, especially during a health or weather-related crisis,” Geek Wire reported.
Amazon told CNBC its fleet of Prime Air drones “isn’t ready to immediately deploy package deliveries at scale,” and Bloomberg reported it “must still clear some imposing regulatory and technical hurdles before small packages holding the likes of cat food or toothpaste can routinely be dropped at people’s homes.”
Still, the FAA clearance marks “an important step forward for Prime Air,” David Carbon, vice president of Prime Air, said in a statement to CNBC, Bloomberg and Geek Wire.
“(This certification) indicates the FAA’s confidence in Amazon’s operating and safety procedures for an autonomous drone delivery service that will one day deliver packages to our customers around the world,” Carbon said in the statement. “We will continue to develop and refine our technology to fully integrate delivery drones into the airspace, and work closely with the FAA and other regulators around the world to realize our vision of 30-minute delivery.”
Amazon is one of only a handful of companies to receive the Part 135 air carrier certificate, including Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Wing and the United States Parcel Service Inc., Bloomberg reported.
A Part 135 air carrier certificate is a five-phase certification process for any company seeking federal approval for package delivery by drone and “is the only path for small drones to carry the property of another for compensation beyond visual line of sight,” according to the FAA.
UPS Flight Forward Inc. was the first company to receive a Part 135 air carrier certificate.
It completed the first federally approved package delivery by drone in September 2019 “when it flew medical supplies at WakeMed’s hospital campus in Raleigh, N.C.,” the FAA said. UPS’s first two home drone deliveries were completed in nearby Cary, North Carolina, in November that year, The Raleigh News & Observer reported.
Amazon unveiled its latest drone technology last year at the re:MARS Conference (Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space) in Las Vegas. The drone is designed to deliver packages weighing fewer than five pounds in less than 30 minutes to locations within a 15-mile radius.
The e-commerce giant previously completed its first fully autonomous Prime Air delivery on Dec. 7, 2016, when it sent a package via drone in 13 minutes during a private trial for customers in Cambridge, England.
