Amazon gets certified by the US Government to operate its drone airline with the approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate its fleet of Prime Air delivery drones.
With this, the company will now be able to safely and efficiently deliver the packages to the customers using drone starting with the testing of the service.
For the approval, the company went through rigorous training and had to submit evidence ensuring the safety of these drones and also had to give demonstration to the FAA inspector for the same.
The certification comes under Part 135 of FAA regulations that allow the company to carry payloads on small drones ‘beyond the visual line of sight’ of the operator.
“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,” commented, David Carbon, VP, Prime Air.
The e-commerce giant will continue to improve the technology to fully integrate delivery drones into the airspace while working closely with the FAA and other regulators.
Though the technology is not ready for the immediate deployment of package deliveries at scale, the company will start with the testing and flying. The drone deliveries are a part of the company initiative for fastening the process of order delivery to the prime members.
It has also invested billion dollars to transition from two to one day delivery.
Amazon started testing the drone in 2013, with motive to deliver the package to the customers’ doorstep in 30 minutes or less. The petition for the approval of the plan was submitted to the FAA for approval in August 2019. The deliveries would be made in an area with less population density and packages would weight 5 pound or less.
A few other companies who have received the FAA approval are Alphabet-owned Wing for commercial deliveries in US.
