Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has had a dream for a while now: delivery drones flying here, there, and everywhere, zooming over rooftops and dropping off packages to customers. That dream has now become real with Amazon’s first Prime Air drone delivery, Bezos announced today.
The company’s first commercial drone delivery was to a customer in the Cambridge area of England, where Amazon has an Air fulfillment center nearby. From click to delivery, the order took 13 minutes to arrive.
Prime Air drones carry packages that weigh up to five pounds. The GPS-guided devices fly at altitudes below 400 feet. Amazon says that all drone deliveries will be made within 30 minutes of an order being placed.
Amazon opened a private trial to just two customers in the area, but says that it will soon expand the beta test to “dozens” of customers living near the UK facility, and then to “hundreds more.”
“After that, well, it’d be easy to say ‘the sky’s the limit.’ But that’s not exactly true anymore, is it?” Amazon says (a bit smugly) in a promotional video.
If Amazon wants to expand into the U.S. anytime soon, it will have to figure out a way to keep its drones from flying over cities and suburbs, as the Federal Aviation Administration’s rules for commercial drones prohibit them from flying over people.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist