FAA gives online retailer Amazon experimental license
E-commerce giant Amazon’s ambitions to provide delivery via drone gained some traction on March 19 with federal regulators granting the company an “experimental airworthiness certificate.”
The Federal Aviation Administration gave Amazon Logistics permission to start testing drone operations under a number of conditions.
The FAA license considers operations at 400 feet or below during daylight hours in visual meteorological conditions.
Amazon drones, or unmanned aircraft systems, must remain in visual line-of-sight of the operator, who is required to have a private pilot’s certificate and current medical certification.
In December, Amazon VP of Global Public Policy Paul Misener sent a letter to the FAA pointedly asking to move drone experiments outdoors as soon as possible.
From the letter: “We must move beyond our indoor testing if we are to realize the consumer benefits of Amazon Prime Air. In the absence of timely approval by the FAA to conduct outdoor testing, we have begun utilizing outdoor testing facilities outside the United States.”
Misener wrote that the company would like to “pursue fast-paced innovation in the United States, which would include the creation of high-quality jobs and significant investment in the local community.”
The goal of Amazon Prime Air is to deliver packages in 30 minutes or less using drones.
“We believe customers will love it, and we are committed to making Prime Air available worldwide as soon as we are permitted to do so,” Misener wrote.
Amazon on March 19 announced that it is expanding its Prime Now service, which delivers orders in one hour or less in limited markets.
While Prime Now was previously available only in Manhattan and Brooklyn, N.Y., the service now covers Baltimore, Md., and Miami, Fla.
Dave Clark, Amazon’s SVP of worldwide operations, said the new service “means you can skip a trip to the store and get the items you need delivered right to your door in under an hour.”
