We are impressed with so many aspects of College Station. Now, we are excited to begin reaching out to customers in College Station, Texas, so they can also receive drone deliveries later this year. Hundreds of residents have expressed interest in receiving their Amazon orders via drone, and we’re working with each one of them to make this a reality. In what some observers took as a sign of no confidence in the future of the drone project, Amazon last year gutted its Prime Air headquarters in the UK, laying off more than 100 employees, Wired reported.Last month, we announced plans to offer drone delivery to customers living in Lockeford, California. Prime Air had a 20% turnover rate last year, higher than many other Amazon divisions, as employees scrambled to leave what some considered a failed project, Insider previously reported. It's not clear where Amazon's timeline for drone delivery stands. "We received a Part 135 Air Carrier certification from the Federal Aviation Administration in August 2020 – a key milestone which has provided us with even more opportunities to keep improving the service." "Our focus remains on innovating on behalf of our customers and scaling a service that is safe and reliable." Amazon's spokesperson added.
Google's drone delivery subsidiary, Wing, by contrast, has completed more than 100,000 deliveries.
Prime Air has yet to make a single commercial delivery. Launched in 2013, the project has been plagued by internal conflict, high turnover, and delays. It's not uncommon for developmental drones to crash during test flights, or for those crashes to set off blazes in dry eastern Oregon, according to a review of local media reports.īut the Amazon drone crashes are likely to raise questions about the viability of the Prime Air drone delivery program. "No employee or community member was at risk and the team followed all appropriate safety procedures and reporting requirements." In this instance, we carried out a test with the utmost caution, as is normal in the aviation industry," it said. "We follow thorough procedures on how flight tests are conducted and how we respond to any incident. During these tests our drones fly over sterile ranges to ensure our employees are safe from potential injury," the company added. We conduct extensive testing to gather data that continually improves the safety and reliability of our systems and operations. "Prime Air's number one priority is safety. In that incident, the drone's propeller failed, causing the 89-pound machine to careen downward "in an uncontrolled state."Īmazon said in a statement that no one had ever been injured or harmed as a result of the company's flight tests. The report redacted Amazon's name but referred to the MK27 drone, the make and model of Amazon's experimental Prime Air delivery drone.Īnother FAA report, from May, does not redact Amazon's name when describing a second MK27 drone crash. This story is available exclusively to InsiderĪnd start reading now. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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