US Approved Amazon’s ‘Prime Air’ to Deliver Items Through Drones
A freshly-issued Federal Aviation Administration certificate has cleared the launchpad for drone deliveries in the US.
The e-commerce colossus which is Seattle-based has been developing drones as a part of its massive investment in a logistics network that will rapidly deliver purchases to consumers.
“This certification is an important step forward for Prime Air and 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,” Amazon vice president David Carbon said in reply to an AFP inquiry.
“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.”
The package delivery giant, UPS obtained US regulatory approval last year to operate a “drone airline”. It received full certification from the FAA, permitting it to fly an unlimited number of drones with an unlimited number of remote operators.
Last year, FAA certified Alphabet’s drone project Wing as an air carrier, clearing the regulatory path for it to make deliveries to the buyers.
The first real-world deliveries were completed by the Wing team in the year 2014 in rural Australia, where the first-aid supplies, candy bars, dog treats, and water to farmers were successfully transported.
After two years of that, the Wing drones were used to deliver burritos to students at a university in Virginia.
