A Prime Air delivery drone from Amazon.com Inc. (Photographer: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg)
Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Air drone program. has been cleared by US regulators to fly devices beyond pilots’ line of sight, extending range and giving more customers access to the service.
The approval, which means pilots won’t have to see the drones firsthand, will allow Prime Air to scale up deliveries in the U.S., Amazon said on its website Thursday. The company will expand the area it serves with unmanned aerial vehicles in College Station, Texas, and will begin integrating such shipments into its same-day delivery network this year.
Amazon is the latest company to receive permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones more freely, amid the rise in express delivery services. UAVs offer a potentially faster and cheaper way to deliver small packages than paying drivers to fight through traffic and find a parking spot. Amazon, Alphabet Inc. and Walmart Inc. have all invested in drones with varying degrees of success.
Prime Air started slowly. a Bloomberg Research in 2022 found the program faced technical challenges, high turnover and safety concerns. A serious crash in June 2021 prompted federal regulators to question the drone’s airworthiness as multiple safety features failed and the machine went out of control, sparking a wildfire.
The 2021 crash occurred during test flights, Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson said by email. “During our commercial operations,” Stephenson said, “we have had no safety accidents while delivering to customers.”
Amazon wants to deliver 500 million packages per year by drone by the end of this decade. In 2023, it delivered more than 4 billion units on the same or next day to Prime members in the US.
In announcing the FAA’s clearance on Thursday, Amazon said it has spent years “developing, testing and refining our onboard detection and avoidance system to ensure our drones can detect and avoid obstacles in the air.” ”
First print: May 31, 2024 | 10:47 PM IST