Amazon wants to let more of its customers get their packages delivered by a drone.
On Wednesday, the e-commerce giant announced plans to expand its Prime Air service, which it's been operating on a small scale in two pilot locations for nearly a year. Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) plans to add a third U.S. city and cities in Italy and the United Kingdom by the end of 2024, and, beyond that, plans to integrate drone deliveries into all its same-day fulfillment centers.
“This is an exciting addition and offering to our fulfillment network,” Amazon spokesperson Natalie Banke said, during a preview event held for media at Amazon’s California Prime Air fulfillment center earlier this week. Banke did not have a timeline for when the company plans to offer drone delivery out of Sacramento-area fulfillment centers.
Currently, Amazon does drone deliveries out of purpose-built fulfillment centers in College Station, Texas, and Lockeford — a town of fewer than 4,000 residents just east of Lodi.
After announcing the Lockeford location last summer, the company got clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to start making deliveries toward the end of last year.
Existing customers of Amazon’s Prime service have to specially opt in to get drone deliveries. The Seattle-based company sends someone to survey the customer’s property to make sure there’s a suitable place for the drone to land.
Once they’re onboarded to the service, customers can place an order and get their delivery within an hour. The drones, which are about 6 feet in diameter and weigh 80 pounds, can only deliver items that weigh up to 5 pounds and fit in a shoebox-sized package that is slotted behind the battery in the body of the drone before takeoff.
“The most ordered item last week was actually a toothbrush,” said Erik Garcia Robertson, the site lead at the fulfillment center. The 25,000-square-foot warehouse is stocked with things customers might order, which includes a lot of grocery and drugstore items. During the event Monday morning, the drone delivered a can of corn.
“A lot of it is really everyday use,” Garcia Robertson said. "We're constantly assessing what we should be bringing in expanding for our customers to make sure that they have a variety of options."
Employees declined to say how many deliveries the company had made from the site. So far, only customers near the two drone fulfillment centers have had the opportunity to sign up — in Lockeford, the drones can only deliver within 3.5 miles of the facility, per FAA restrictions.
There are a number of other restrictions, too — although the drones are programmed to fly autonomously, there is a pilot monitoring each flight, and someone at the facility maintains visual line-of-sight with the drone throughout the delivery.
“We are working very closely with the FAA to ensure that we can continue growing, and earning the trust of our community and the government, that we are safely delivering packages to customers by drone,” Banke said.
Amazon is also building new drones to overcome limitations to the service. As part of its announcement, the company unveiled its latest drone model, MK-30, which it says is lighter and quieter than the current model it uses, MK-27-2. The MK-30 can also fly in a wider range of weather conditions — Amazon can’t use the current drone when it’s hotter than 91 degrees, or when it’s raining.
The company designs and manufactures all of its drones in-house.
“This is a new drone, but it's not going to be our last,” Banke said. “I can guarantee that we're always going to continue to innovate and make our drones even safer and more efficient.”
