FAA Clears The Way For Amazon To Expand Drone Delivery Service

Amazon has been approved to fly its delivery drones for longer distances without needing ground spotters. This used to be a problem for the company before, but such has been cleared.

Previously, Amazon can only fly drones if it was within the view of the pilot. Now, the drones could fly far distances and even beyond the line of sight of the one observing.

According to CNBC, one of the areas where it would be expanding is College Station, Texas. The company has already previously conducted tests in the area.

The approval came after the company developed a collision-avoidance technology onboard the drones, which would allow them to detect and avoid obstacles in the air. The technology has been one of the primary features of drone-delivery companies. This would include Zipline and BVLOS.

Ever since Jeff Bezos laid down its drone delivery service, which was more than a decade ago, it has already been struggling.

Just last year, PrimeAir has been hit by layoffs, which was actually a part of huge cuts from Amazon. Aside from this, there were executive departures from the company and some regulatory setbacks.

Despite all these, Amazon is not giving up on its drone delivery service projects. It eyes expanding to other cities by the year 2025, and its aim to be able to deliver around 500 million packages per year using drones remains.

Amazon stated that it now plans to immediately scale operations so that it would be able to reach more customers in areas that are densely populated areas, AP revealed.