Amazon Prime Air Receives Approval for Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations

­With its latest FAA approvals, Amazon Prime Air can now massively expand its operations.

Amazon’s drone delivery service has had a rocky road, to say the least. While it was announced over a decade ago, in 2013, and their original goal aimed for 10,000 drone deliveries by 2023, it only hit 100 deliveries as of last year.

The early drone model’s tendency to crash (and homeowners’ fears of vehicles raining from the sky) didn’t help matters. Nor did Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) guidelines which stated that commercial drone operators had to maintain line-of-sight operations until the FAA approved a technology that’d allow the vehicles to safely fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).

Well, the FAA recently approved said technology, and Amazon is ecstatic.

“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,” Amazon stated in a blog post. “To obtain this permission, we developed a BVLOS strategy, including an onboard detect-and-avoid technology.”

Amazon’s original Prime Air specifications pushed the idea of 30-minute deliveries for packages up to 5 pounds.

Not only does that seem feasible, but their new goal of 500 million packages, per year, by drone, by 2030, is a realistic benchmark.

Course, some challenges do remain – like the cost. In 2022, each delivery cost about $484, and the company wants to drop that to $63 by 2025, though that’s still astronomical for domestic shipping (especially for Prime customers, who are used to free and often same-day delivery).

After shutting down its test site in Lockeford, California, Amazon now plans to launch drone deliveries in the West Valley, Phoenix metro area.