In a letter to the FAA penned by John Nichols, the mayor of College Station, Texas—one of two locations where Prime Air began flying in 2022—on behalf of the city council he urged the regulator to deny a request that would more than double the service’s range. The mayor cited noise concerns from residents as the chief factor guiding the city’s position.

College Station has become a critical hub for Prime Air, which has struggled to get its drone delivery service off the ground. The city was intended to be one of two key launch markets in addition to Lockeford, California, but the latter service was shuttered in April after a less-than-stellar performance in a little more than its first year.

That leaves College Station as the sole market for Prime Air operations, and Amazon recently bolstered the service by adding on-demand delivery of prescription medications for the flu, asthma, pneumonia, and more. The e-commerce giant is also looking to bring drones to the Phoenix metro area in Arizona and has teased an international expansion to the U.K. and Italy.

Last year, Prime Air unveiled its MK30 drone, which is rangier, quieter, and more durable than its current MK27-2. To integrate the new model into its Texas fleet, the company submitted a draft supplemental environmental assessment to the FAA summarizing the MK30’s potential impacts on College Station residents.

Since the new model can fly in light rain and more extreme temperatures than the MK27-2, Amazon proposes operations 365 days per year, an increase from 260. Flights per day would increase from 200 to about 470 and would take place between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. CT, removing an FAA restriction limiting flights to daytime hours.

Under the proposal, the company’s operating area would expand from 43.7 to 174 square miles. The expansion to 43.7 square miles happened earlier this year, when the FAA granted Amazon approval to fly its drones where its pilots cannot physically see them. Comparable waivers have been handed out to competitors such as Zipline, Alphabet’s Wing, and UPS’s Flight Forward, similarly allowing those companies to expand their service areas through remote operations.

If approved, the lighter restrictions would allow Prime Air to fly more than 170,000 operations per year in College Station with the MK30, compared to 52,000 with its current model.

Nichols said that the city is excited to be one of the few in the U.S. to host a drone delivery service. But that came with a caveat.

“While the city is supportive of Amazon Prime Air’s efforts, we do not support their request in its entirety,” Nichols wrote. “Since locating in College Station, residents in neighborhoods adjacent to Amazon Prime Air’s facility have expressed concern to the city council regarding drone noise levels, particularly during takeoff and landing, as well as in some delivery operations.”

According to Nichols, residents “have continued” to voice concerns regarding Prime Air’s planned expansion, worrying that the noise will only worsen. The mayor added that the expanded service area could extend beyond the city’s commercial zoning district, which is intended to limit commercial spillover into residential neighborhoods.

“Due to the level of concern from residents, the city would ask to delay the increase in service levels relating to the number of deliveries, as well as the expanded operation days and hours, until additional noise mitigation efforts are implemented by Amazon Prime Air,” Nichols wrote.

Nichols did offer support, however, for the introduction of the MK30, which is expected to be 40 percent quieter than its predecessor. It is unclear whether the new drone would represent sufficient “noise mitigation efforts” in the city council’s eyes, though Nichols said it would have a “positive effect” on residents’ displeasure.

The comment period for the environmental assessment closed on Friday, and the city and Prime Air will now have to wait for the FAA’s decision. Amazon is also awaiting comments and a final decision on a draft environmental assessment for its planned Arizona service.

Should the proposed expansion be rejected, it would represent yet another blow for Prime Air, which so far has not delivered on former CEO Jeff Bezos’ prognostications more than a decade ago.

In that time, competitors such as Zipline and Wing have risen to the top of the young industry—each of those firms has completed multiple hundred thousands of drone deliveries, including outside the U.S.

Prime Air’s future prospects may be bolstered by the MK30, which promises to address some of the company’s problems: namely range, excessive noise, and limitations on deliveries in inclement weather.

Amazon is not the only drone delivery provider contending with unhappy customers. Earlier this month, a Florida man was arrested for shooting down a Walmart delivery drone he said was flying over his house.

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The post Texans Push Back on Amazon’s Proposed Drone Delivery Expansion appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Amazon Prime Air on Thursday said it obtained FAA approval for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations, which refer to flights that cannot be directly observed by a human pilot. The company said its new permissions will allow it to immediately expand the delivery area for its MK-27 drone in College Station, Texas, one of two U.S. locations in which it began flying in 2022. Its other service, in Lockeford, California, was shut down in April.

As things stand, BVLOS authorization is considered the king of drone delivery approvals.

In lieu of a final rule on BVLOS flights—which the FAA has been developing for years but has not yet published—the agency awards temporary waivers to individual companies on a case-by-case basis. Some exemptions, called summary grants, allow a firm to piggyback off an approval given to another company if their technologies and business models are sufficiently aligned.

For those without BVLOS waivers, drone delivery areas are often limited to just a few square miles and require human observers, which can put a strain on operations.

Amazon said Prime Air engineers developed a BVLOS strategy that includes an onboard detect-and-avoid (DAA) system, which allows the company’s drones to autonomously dodge planes, helicopters, balloons, and other obstacles.

It shared with the FAA information about the system’s design, operation, and maintenance and conducted flight demonstrations in front of agency inspectors. After observing the technology in action and poring over test data, the regulator issued the approval.

Now, in lieu of human observers, remote drone pilots will oversee the aircraft while Prime Air DAA performs most of the work.

Amazon, which already dominates same- and next-day ground delivery, hopes to deliver 500 million packages per year by drone before the end of the decade. However, the company has been reluctant to provide delivery figures since it came out last year that its Lockeford service had completed just 100 deliveries after several months of availability.

This new exemption could change things. Prime Air in 2020 obtained an FAA Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate, making it one of only five drone delivery companies to have obtained that approval. But a BVLOS waiver may allow it to truly compete with rivals such as Wing and Zipline, both of which received such permissions last year.

The company will start by ramping up in College Station. Later this year, it expects to begin deploying drones from hubs next to its same-day delivery site in Tolleson, Arizona, which is slated to be its next launch market. The idea is to be able to fulfill, sort, and deliver from a single location, strategically positioned to be as close to as many customers as possible.

Connections to nearby Amazon fulfillment centers will allow it to offer millions of items for same-day drone delivery, the company says. It has over 100 such facilities spread across the U.S. and more than 175 globally.

Next up for Prime Air will be adding further U.S. locations in 2025. The company is also planning an international expansion to the U.K. and Italy, where its drones will deliver from those larger fulfillment centers. It said it is working with regulators in both countries to introduce the service as soon as late 2024.

Simultaneously, Prime Air continues to hone the design of its new MK-30 drone, which will eventually replace the MK-27 in the U.S. and be the first Amazon drone flown in the U.K. and Italy. According to Amazon, it can fly twice as far as the company’s current model while emitting half as much perceived noise.

Prime Air’s chief competitor is Alphabet drone delivery subsidiary Wing, which as of May has completed more than 350,000 deliveries worldwide—including in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in partnership with Walmart and Walgreens.

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This week, the business lost a key executive. First reported by CNBC, Sean Cassidy, who led Prime Air’s safety, flight operations, and regulatory affairs and was Amazon’s primary liaison with the FAA, has stepped down. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed Cassidy’s departure to FLYING, though the company has yet to name a replacement.

A former Alaska Airlines pilot and first vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), Cassidy was brought on in 2015 as Prime Air’s director of strategic partnerships before transitioning to a more expansive role.

As head of safety, flight operations, and regulatory affairs, Cassidy represented Amazon to regulators worldwide, led airworthiness and certification flight programs, and developed public policy initiatives, rulemaking, and regulatory language. He held the position for nearly eight years.

According to an internal company memo viewed by CNBC, Cassidy announced his departure last week.

“This is my last day at Prime Air and at Amazon, so a quick note to pass along my profound thanks to so many of my friends and colleagues here who have made this nearly nine year journey such an amazing experience,” Cassidy wrote.

While Prime Air will no doubt pick a new liaison to the FAA and other aviation regulators, the loss of a familiar face in Cassidy could pose a setback. The departing executive was influential in obtaining several key approvals, including the first standard Part 135 air carrier certificate awarded by the FAA to operate a drone larger than 55 pounds.

Cassidy has been on board for the vast majority of Prime Air’s decadelong existence. The unit was first teased by then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2013, when he predicted the service would be operational within two years. That vision did not come to fruition. But at the end of 2022, nearly a decade later, Prime Air drones finally took to the skies above Lockeford and College Station.

Early Turbulence

With a few exceptions—including Wing, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet—drone delivery companies are not yet serving the hundreds of thousands of customers many envisioned they would be by now. Prime Air, however, has struggled with scale more than most. And given Amazon’s bevy of cash and logistics capabilities, as well as the ambitious promises of Prime Air leadership, the firm’s early hiccups have been viewed in disappointing terms.

Trouble began in January, when Prime Air was impacted by companywide layoffs at Amazon. Confidential sources told CNBC the drone delivery unit lost a “significant number” of personnel, while former employees told DroneXL that up to 80 percent of its flight operations team had been let go.

In May, five months after launching its two commercial services, Amazon announced that Prime Air had completed just 100 deliveries—a far cry from the 10,000 trips predicted by vice president David Carbon, a former Boeing executive. The company cited operational restrictions by the FAA on its Part 135 certificate as the culprit.

Among these are limitations on flying at night, over people or roads, and beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the operator without a visual observer (VO). Under most BVLOS exemptions, the FAA requires VOs to be stationed along the route for safety purposes. Removing them, therefore, can lower an operator’s human capital costs and enable flights over longer distances.

Cassidy’s exit isn’t the only leadership loss Prime Air has faced in recent months. The business also lost chief pilot Jim Mullin and head of flight test operations Robert Dreer—who had been with the company for seven and four years, respectively—in August.

Correcting Course?

Despite its setbacks, Prime Air has soldiered on, and it appears things are beginning to turn around. In October, the company added prescription drone delivery for its College Station customers and announced an international expansion to the U.K. and Italy, where it expects to fly in late 2024. New service locations—including a third, unnamed U.S. market—will be named in the coming months.

Accompanying that announcement was a first look at the firm’s new MK30 drone, which will replace its existing model in the United States. Prime Air said the design flies twice as far as its predecessor while producing half the noise. It can also operate in light rain, hot and cold temperatures, and congested landing areas.

Adding to the recent momentum is a fresh exemption from the FAA, obtained in October. The regulator told FLYING the approval—which authorizes BVLOS flights without VOs—does not yet apply to Prime Air’s commercial services. As a Part 135 operator, the company’s operations specification documents, which are required to be held by certificated providers, do not allow for such flights.

However, the agency said Prime Air now has the opportunity to prove it can fly safely without VOs. If it does so, the FAA can add those permissions to the operations specification.

The regulator told FLYING that Prime Air’s exemption is a summary grant based on one of the BVLOS waivers it awarded in September to four operators: Zipline, UPS Flight Forward, Phoenix Air Unmanned, and uAvionix. Summary grants are essentially streamlined authorizations for “copycat” companies with similar infrastructure, technology, and operations to those who have already been approved.

According to CNBC, Cassidy led Amazon’s efforts to secure the approval, asking the FAA in July to sign off on the removal of VOs. Now, the company will need to find a way forward without its longtime liaison.

CNBC also reported that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a Class 4 investigation into a November 10 crash at Prime Air’s test site in Pendleton, Oregon, per a federal crash report. No injuries or destruction to the site were reported, though the drone suffered “substantial” damage.

As things stand, Prime Air is playing catch up in an increasingly crowded industry.

Zipline and Wing are the dominant players in medical and consumer drone delivery, respectively, each having made hundreds of thousands of deliveries. Both firms are partnered with Walmart, which has also made thousands of deliveries with a third company, DroneUp. Meanwhile, another operator with more than 150,000 flights logged, Ireland’s Manna, just launched in the U.S. Israel’s Flytrex has also cemented itself as a player.

This likely was not what Bezos envisioned when he revealed Amazon’s drone delivery plans a decade ago, and the loss of Cassidy will surely sting. But with its massive financial and logistical capabilities, the e-commerce giant is always a candidate for a rebound, and there’s still time for it to establish Prime Air as an industry stalwart.

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Now for this week’s top story:

China’s EHang Earns World’s First eVTOL Type Certificate

What happened? The U.S. was beaten to a key AAM milestone…by a familiar foe. China’s civil aviation authority (CAAC) last week awarded Guangzhou-based EHang the world’s first type certificate for an eVTOL aircraft, dealing somewhat of a blow to U.S. companies working toward that goal with the FAA. At the same time, though, the rising tide could raise all boats, so to speak.

EHang’s milestone: The Chinese manufacturer’s EH216-S—designed for passenger air taxi and tourism services—is now type certified and authorized for commercial operations and scaled production. Amazingly, the first type-approved eVTOL flies autonomously, with no pilot on board. Among the major players globally, Boeing’s Wisk Aero is the only other firm that wants to fly autonomous from the jump.

During a 30-month process, the EH216-S was thoroughly scrutinized and tested, completing more than 40,000 preliminary flights—some with passengers on board. Rivals Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation are the closest to beginning “for credit” testing with the FAA in the U.S.

The playing field: Joby recently began testing its eVTOL with a pilot on board, while Archer appears set to reach that stage next year. Wisk, meanwhile, is looking further out, eyeing commercial operations before the end of the decade. But there’s a high likelihood the next eVTOL type certification also comes from abroad.

Germany’s Volocopter expects to type certify its VoloCity air taxi in time for a commercial launch during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, ahead of Joby and Archer’s initial air taxi routes in the U.S. (planned for 2025). Another German manufacturer, Lilium, is the only eVTOL firm with certification bases established from both the FAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

Quick quote: “For the industry, the first type certificate for an eVTOL aircraft is a major step forward, as it shows that a player has met the expectations around safety, reliability, etc. that the regulator imposes to protect the public. It opens up the commercial market and allows the start of initial commercial operations, assuming operating regulation is also in place. That is an exciting moment for the industry,” Robin Riedel, who co-leads the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility, told FLYING.

My take: So…what does this all mean? In my mind, there are two ways to view EHang’s milestone: as a blow to its U.S. rivals, or as a boon for the AAM industry as a whole.

Let’s start with that first perspective. Obviously, the U.S. wants to be the first nation with a robust AAM industry, and type certification is a major step. EHang (for now) is only permitted to fly in China, which should allow the U.S. market to develop concurrently. However, the eastern superpower now has a head start, and it could capitalize by growing its AAM services at a faster rate—especially if other firms obtain the approval EHang did.

Now for the counterpoint: Perhaps a rising tide will lift all boats? The FAA has shown to be more methodical when it comes to AAM regulations, opting for a different process than regulators in the EU and elsewhere. But China has now shown the world that it’s possible to quickly certify an eVTOL, albeit with the caveat that certification does not necessarily equate to safe flight. 

Faced with the pressure of beating out its rival—amplified by Chinese dominance in the commercial drone market—maybe the FAA could take a page or two from its playbook.

Deep dive: China’s EHang Earns World’s First eVTOL Type Certificate

In Other News…

Amazon Makes a Flurry of Drone Delivery Announcements

What happened? After months of radio silence, Amazon provided an update on its Prime Air drone delivery service—four updates to be more accurate. The e-commerce giant said it will add prescription drone delivery in Texas, announced an international expansion, unveiled its latest design, and revealed that its drones will soon be integrated into its massive delivery network.

Back on track? It’s hard to describe Prime Air’s current drone delivery offerings as anything other than a disappointment. After a decade of hyping up the service, Amazon in May said it had completed just 100 deliveries in California and Texas, a far cry from its projections. But with the addition of prescription delivery and an expansion into the U.K., Italy, and another unnamed U.S. city, the company clearly has not given up.

The integration of drones into Amazon’s unparalleled delivery network could be huge. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The firm has an unparalleled lattice of thousands of facilities worldwide, all deliberately built to be close to as many customers as possible. Sounds like an ideal hub for short-range delivery drones.

Deep dive: Amazon Adds Texas Prescription Drone Delivery, Announces International Expansion

Archer Lays Groundwork for Service in the UAE

What happened? The Middle East is quickly becoming a hot spot for eVTOL activity, and Archer is the latest to enter the action. The air taxi manufacturer is working with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) to set up shop in the United Arab Emirates, with plans to build a new headquarters, add manufacturing capabilities, and launch commercial service in Abu Dhabi in 2026.

AAM in the UAE: Archer’s facilities will be located in Abu Dhabi’s Smart and Autonomous Vehicle Industry (SAVI) cluster, a planned urban community announced last week. The cluster has the backing of Emirati higher-ups and recently inducted Archer rival Joby, which also plans to establish a footprint in the country.

The UAE is pouring millions of dollars into its AAM industry and has also hosted flights from Volocopter, China’s XPeng, and several others. A few firms—including a California-based eVTOL manufacturer—have already set up shop in the country. If all goes according to plan, they and Archer will be some of the first companies to offer AAM services in the Middle East.

Deep Dive: Archer Plans to Launch Electric Air Taxi Flights Across the UAE

And a Few More Headlines:

• Lilium partnered with Houston-based EMCJET to begin selling its Jet Pioneer Edition to wealthy individual customers in the U.S.

• Jetson Aero’s Jetson One personal electric aircraft earned Italy’s first ultralight eVTOL certification.

• NASA unveiled plans for a new 36-acre Berkeley Space Center, located at its Ames Research Center in California.

• The agency also received a lift from SpaceX, which launched the Psyche asteroid mission spacecraft aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket.

• Beta Technologies partnered with FBO and airport management firm Shoreline Aviation to install Massachusetts’ first electric aircraft charging station.

Spotlight on…

Turbulence Solutions

This week, I’m not the only one holding the spotlight. A video posted to X (formerly Twitter) by Austrian startup Turbulence Solutions garnered millions of viewers, who were likely intrigued (as I was) by the firm’s Turbulence Canceling technology.

Turbulence Solutions predicts its tech will reduce the turbulence felt by passengers by as much as 80 percent. In the video, a simulated flight comparison demonstrates how aircraft might behave with and without it. Real-life footage depicting views from an aircraft cockpit and one of the wings shows what the solution will look like in action. The basic idea is to use a combination of sensors, lidar, and flight control software to predict and adjust to turbulence.

Andras Galffy, the firm’s founder, CEO, and head of technology and research, told FLYING the company will first integrate its solution on GA and eVTOL aircraft. Already, the system has been tested on crewed demonstrator aircraft, and Turbulence Solutions recently got its first customer: a manufacturer of 1,300-pound ultralights.

Deep Dive: Startup Looking to Eliminate Turbulence for GA Pilots Goes Viral

On the Horizon…

First, briefly revisiting EHang’s type certification milestone, China’s progress on AAM operations is something to keep an eye on. Electric air taxis are not in the country’s skies just yet. But successful or not, EHang’s commercial flights will give regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere valuable information, which could inform new AAM policies and strategies.

Staying on the topic of AAM, AFWERX, the U.S. Air Force’s innovation arm, is working with the Department of Transportation’s AAM Interagency Working Group to shape regulations for the U.S. market. Already, AFWERX has plenty of expertise with emerging aircraft. And combined with upcoming deliveries of eVTOL aircraft from Joby and Archer, the department could offer a unique perspective on regulations.

Elsewhere, regulators in the U.K. and Australia continue to explore beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations. The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority has selected six trials—covering innovations from medical drone delivery to “sky highways”—with the hope that they can inform the regulator’s BVLOS policy. 

The Australian aviation authority (CASA), meanwhile, requested public feedback on a survey designed to collect data on BVLOS drone use. It too will use its learnings to develop a regulatory framework for low-risk operations beyond the pilot’s view.

Mark Your Calendars

Each week, I’ll be running through a list of upcoming industry events. Intergeo 2023 and Dronitaly wrapped up last week across the Atlantic, but here are a few conferences to keep an eye on:

• Airtec 2023—Wednesday-October 27 in Augsburg, Germany
• World’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Conference—November 12-14 in Jerusalem
• Dubai Air Show—November 13-17 in Dubai, UAE
• Aerospace Tech Week Americas 2023—November 14-15 in Atlanta
• Advanced Air Mobility Summit 2023—November 20-21 in Lisbon, Portugal
• ICAO Drone Enable—December 5-7 in Montreal
• 11th Annual eVTOL Symposium—February 6-8 in Silicon Valley, California
• Drone Show Korea 2024—March 6-8 in Busan, South Korea
• AUVSI Xponential 2024—April 22-25 in San Diego 
• Vertical Flight Society’s Forum 80—May 7-9 in Montreal

Tweet of the Week

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The post Is China the Top Dog in eVTOL? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The drone delivery industry, just like the unmanned aircraft that power it, is currently flying well below the stratosphere.

Among the drone firms that have made their 2022 delivery figures public, none eclipsed more than a few thousand deliveries, mainly owing to the Federal Aviation Administration’s stringent regulations around the young industry.

Those rules, designed to ensure the safety and privacy of the public, have limited commercial drone delivery operations to a handful of companies with FAA approval. But this week that select group got a little larger.

On Monday, Israel-based drone delivery provider Flytrex announced the FAA granted the firm a Standard Part 135 Air Carrier Certification, which according to the agency is “the only path for small drones to carry the property of another for compensation beyond visual line of sight.”

In other words, the certification allows companies to launch and operate long-range commercial drone delivery services without a limit on size or scope. Flytrex joins Alphabet’s Wing, UPS Flight Forward, Amazon Prime Air and Zipline as the only firms with such an approval.

There are still some restrictions on what Standard Part 135 Air Carriers can do—for example, they must receive authorization for each type of operation they want to conduct. But the certification is considered the most lenient regulatory framework available for drone delivery operators today.

The primary alternative, which Flytrex and others have utilized since around 2019, is operating under an FAA exemption or through an initiative like the UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP), a yearslong program aimed at introducing drones to U.S. airspace and evaluating their benefits and drawbacks.

But those methods are temporary. In order for an operator to get off the ground and stay airborne, a Standard Part 135 Air Carrier Certification is the best option.

“We live in an era of instant gratification, where consumers want to get their food or goods faster, more reliably, more economically and more sustainably — and drone delivery has risen to the occasion,” said Yariv Bash, CEO and cofounder of Flytrex. “Flytrex’s continued success delivering to customers throughout North Carolina and Texas has put us ahead of the curve.”

Since 2019, Flytrex has operated its North Carolina services under the IPP and the subsequent BEYOND program, a follow-up initiative aimed at addressing concerns with flights beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the pilot.

Today, the firm’s network includes five delivery areas—four in North Carolina and one in Granbury, Texas, added in March as part of an expansion—reaching tens of thousands of households by using a tether to lower orders directly into their yards.

But now, Flytrex is aiming much, much higher. Alongside aircraft management partner Causey Aviation Unmanned, the company said it will expand its services nationwide to, by its estimate, 82 million eligible front and back yards.

“Flytrex’s technological expertise, innovation and safety-first approach has helped elevate our service to new heights in drone delivery,” said Jeff Causey, founder and COO of Causey Aviation. “Our close cooperation with the FAA has provided just the right tailwinds to help bring about this drone revolution.”

Among the handful of Standard Part 135 Air Carriers, Flytrex stands out. It’s not a subsidiary of a larger company and doesn’t have the massive coffers of Wing, Flight Forward or Prime Air, nor does it have the volume of Zipline, which has completed over 450,000 commercial deliveries since 2016.

Flytrex did launch one of the world’s first fully autonomous drone delivery systems in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2017. But among its new peers, the Israel-based provider is probably the least established name, further amplifying the significance of the milestone.

Thus far, smaller drone firms have experienced minimal success obtaining Part 135 approvals. Some have gone a different route, opting to certify their drones instead of operations. 

Take Matternet, which in 2022 saw its M2 drone certified as an aircraft and approved for U.S. production by the FAA. Flytrex is currently going through a similar process with its FTX-M600P model.

Drone delivery providers will need to certify both their aircraft and operations in order to avoid regulatory logjams. But Flytrex’s approval this week serves as evidence that smaller operators have a path forward in the growing space — even if it’s an arduous one.

For more coverage on drone delivery, go to FreightWaves.com.

The post Flytrex Granted FAA Approval for Long-Range Commercial Drone Deliveries appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Just as Amazon Prime Air drone delivery was beginning to gather momentum, the service reportedly was hit with another key setback.

Confidential sources claiming to be familiar with the matter told CNBC that Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) drone delivery unit lost a “significant number” of employees as part of the company’s plans to cut a total of 18,000 jobs. 

The reported layoffs come less than one month after Amazon launched its first commercial drone delivery service in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas.

When asked for further confirmation and details about the layoffs, Amazon spokesperson Av Zammit instead reaffirmed the e-commerce giant’s commitment to its two pilot markets.

“We are committed to our delivery operations in Lockeford and College Station and will continue to offer a safe and exceptional drone delivery service to our customers in both locations,” Zammit said. “We will gradually expand deliveries to more customers in those areas over time.”

Several LinkedIn posts from former Prime Air employees confirm that a reduction in head count took place in some form. Last week, two former employees working on Amazon’s drone delivery operations in College Station said they were let go. Two others, one working in the Seattle area and another based in Boston, made similar posts.

But it’s possible the job cuts were much more widespread. In a now-deleted LinkedIn post, one former employee claimed Amazon’s drone delivery team in Pendleton, Oregon — where the company houses one of its many testing sites — was slashed in half.

And according to drone delivery news outlet DroneXL, former employees said the firm cut up to 80 percent of its flight operations personnel. The employees, who shared the information on condition of anonymity, cited cost cutting as the reason for the layoffs, claiming the company decided which employees to keep based on salary.

The reports, while unconfirmed by Amazon, paint a worrying picture of a business that former CEO Jeff Bezos had billed as the future of delivery.

Bezos first made mention of the program during a TV appearance in 2013, predicting that it would get off the ground within five years. But in the decade since, it has instead been marred by crashes and mass layoffs while competitors like Alphabet’s Wing set up robust commercial services in Europe and Australia.

In the U.S., rival retailer Walmart has made strides with drone delivery partner DroneUp, building a network that now reaches 4 million customers from 36 dedicated hubs spanning seven states, including a service in Utah that just launched last month.

Neither Wing nor Walmart has created a drone delivery network on the level of what Bezos envisioned in 2013. But both firms have been flying commercially for well over a year, while Prime Air just got off the ground last month.

Amazon, for its part, is one of a handful of firms that have obtained a Part 135 Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration, which allows it to temporarily conduct commercial deliveries using an approved aircraft design.

But Amazon, Wing, DroneUp and every other large drone delivery company currently lag behind Mountain View, California-based Matternet when it comes to navigating the U.S. regulatory jungle.

In December, Matternet became the first drone operator to receive an FAA Production Certification. The approval will allow the firm to manufacture its aircraft — which received an FAA Type Certification less than three months prior — in the U.S.

Amazon isn’t quite there yet. But if the cuts to Prime Air’s drone delivery division prove significant, the business’ flight plan may be modified moving forward.

For more coverage on drone delivery, go to FreightWaves.com.

The post Amazon Layoffs Hit Drone Division appeared first on FLYING Magazine.