Amazon Delivery Drones Are Coming To A New City

Amazon has finally opened a new city for its drone delivery program, Prime Air. Normally, the company does one city after another, just testing, but recently ended its testing in Lockeford, California.

Amazon's drone delivery program may have left California, but it has now opened in Phoenix, Arizona. This gives select customers the option to receive deliveries from a drone within an hour. The program is initially limited to products weighing 5 pounds or less, with about 50,000 items available for delivery. The Federal Aviation Administration approved Amazon's MK30 drone to fly beyond visual line of sight, and it is being used for deliveries. The company claims the MK30 can fly twice as far as its previous drone and operates more quietly, with a design built specifically for package deliveries, unlike most commercial drones.

The program is being rolled out gradually, with deliveries currently available during daylight hours and in favorable weather conditions. Customers can choose drone delivery as an option at checkout. Amazon is also integrating its drone delivery systems into its existing same-day delivery network to streamline operations and potentially lower costs.

Amazon

There's still no word on when this kind of service will be fully operational as a regular service. It seems like all the company has been doing is testing. Building drones on a wide scale for this purpose must be expensive, and the testing may be to show the cost versus the benefits. However, despite the challenges that come from this kind of change, the Prime Air Project is at least showing progress by testing in new areas.

While Amazon previously announced plans to expand drone delivery to the UK and Italy by the end of 2024, no updates regarding those plans were given. So, it seems like testing might remain in the US until the end of the year. For now, those in Phoenix can keep an eye out for their turn to try a drone delivery.

Source: Amazon, TechCrunch