Amazon Drones Could Soon Be Making Deliveries in Maine, New Hampshire, & Massachusetts

Even though millions of people had been ordering a variety of products from Amazon for years, the business really exploded in 2020.

People who had always shopped at brick and mortar stores were now making almost all of their purchases online.

Instead of dealing with pandemic restrictions and supply chain issues, at major retailers, people just hop on their phones or laptops to order what they need.  During the pandemic, we were buying everything from toilet paper to video games from the online retailer.

And even though we ditched the masks and social distancing years ago, we have continued to make a lot of our purchases online.

The business may have exploded in 2020, but it is going to take flight in 2024.

For the last few years, Amazon has been testing out the idea of using drones for delivery.  Instead of taking a few days for a product to be delivered, the Amazon drones would get what you ordered in your hands in hours.

For the last few years, they have been testing their drone technology in College Station, Texas.  The downside is that the drone operators need to maintain a line of sight to the drone they are piloting.  This severely limits the range of the drones.  The limited range makes the concept pointless.

However, that is about to change.

According to the Amazon website, the company has taken a giant step forward.

They now have authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly their Mark 27 drones beyond visual range.  That means the drones can fly basically anywhere.

The website says, in part:

We’re excited to share that the FAA has given Prime Air additional permissions that allow us to operate our drones beyond visual line of sight, enabling us to now serve more customers via drone and effectively expand and scale our drone delivery operations. To obtain this permission, we developed a BVLOS strategy, including an onboard detect-and-avoid technology. We’ve spent years developing, testing, and refining our onboard detect-and-avoid system to ensure our drones can detect and avoid obstacles in the air.

If all goes well, Amazon hopes to have the service available nationwide within the next few years.  Of course, it will start in larger cities, like New York and Los Angeles.  Within a few years, though, the service should be everywhere.

How do you feel about drone deliveries?  Are you excited or do you think it is just another gimmick?  Let us know by sending us a message inside our app.